


The Dividing Line

by Kount_Xero



Series: Untouchable [4]
Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Academy of Tomorrow, Depressing, Depression, Depressive, F/M, Gen, Mutant Powers, Power Surge, Rogue's powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-09-28 02:23:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kount_Xero/pseuds/Kount_Xero
Summary: Scott and Rogue have made it to the Academy of Tomorrow, but all is far from well as Rogue is slowly slipping away. As the line between herself and the echoes of all she's absorbed is slowly fading away, Rogue finds that there is only one person she can turn to: Scott Summers.





	1. Prologue (Static.)

In the backyard of that old home, small, with dead grass and dead leaves under her bare feet. Dark skies overhead. Clouds with a tint of sickly green and dark brown. The woods, shrouded in the shadows between the crooked, twisted trees, surrounding the house, all of its dark secrets and terrible inhabitants kept back by the rotted fence.

Toys at her feet. Wooden cars. Meant for a boy. They never had a boy, or had they lost him? She didn’t remember. But maybe, they didn’t even belong to her. Belonged to them.

They were out there, she knew. In the shadows of the woods, barely kept back by the rotted fence, lurking. Whispering hell and damnation from afar.

“Why do you keep coming back here?” he asked her. She glanced at him. He was standing on the porch, with a brown trench coat on top of his regular clothes, hands in his pockets. The ruby quartz glasses gleaming in the darkness. A slight, reddish hue.

“Ah have to.” She said.

“And why’s that? What did you forget in here?”

“Don’t ya see? It’s a piece of mahself. It’s here. Means Ah’m still in here, somewhere.”

“There is no assurance of that. You might just be lost forever.”

“Ah’m lost either way. Don’t matter. Ah have ta try.”

“Not like this. It’s dangerous here.”

“You’re with me. Ah’m safe. Isn’t that what you always say?”

“I can’t be with you forever. I can’t keep you safe from everything.”

That was the truth of it – no matter how much she wanted to deny it. She felt that he meant no malice by stating it outright, by reminding her just where she was and exactly what she had to lose.

She knew what she’d say. She knew what the Rogue would say and the shadow-forms whispering in the woods agreed. So she said it:

“Then go. Ah can’t stop you. Everybody goes away in the end. Everybody leaves.”

“You can stop me, _if you want_. I can stay with you.”

“Not for long.”

“But for a while. Longer than any of them,” he casually waved towards the shadow-forms of others, circling the house, “I can linger.”

“Not really stayin. ‘sokay. Ah’m used to it. Ah just need to find out... find out...”

What was it that she needed to find out? She knew that it was here, somewhere, the crooked, decaying place of her own identity, one that had been ravaged by the shadows surrounding it. This purity, slowly being stained... it wasn’t what she was looking for, though. She was looking for something within it, something deeper. Something lost.

A reverberation through the woods. The shadows, moving closer.

“Let’s go inside.” He said. 

Rogue turned and looked at him. He was standing right in front of the door. The shadows lurking on the porch, around him, whispered promises of madness inside the old home. He, untouched by it all, held out a hand, inviting her to take it.

Rogue shirked from it. Shirked from his touch.

“Come on.” He urged, “Come with me.”

“Ah can’t.” she said.

“Why not?”

Hesitation.

“...Ah’m scared to go in there.”

“That’s where you are.” he said, “That’s where you always were.”

Rogue looked at the door. It was more than just a door. It was a threshold – a pure idea, waiting. The old home, where she knew her memories were, had only one entrance.

“That’s where you are.” he said, “That’s where you always were.”

“Ah can’t go in there. Not now.”

His neck cricked and she saw him looking at something behind her. She didn’t need to look. She knew.

Echoes. Wrapped in shadow, hissing whispers of their private languages, speaking phrases of mundane significant – malevolent, creeping, coming closer.

“Come inside.” He said, his voice growing urgent, “Please. I can’t protect you here.”

She could hear their movements in the grass. They were a little ways away, their collective voices rising in a murmur. And there he was, with that panicked expression on his face, concerned, afraid – all for her. For her still.

“You’ve done enough.” she said.

“I can’t protect you here.”

“Ya don’t have to.” Rogue said. She turned her eyes to his visor, and pretended, as she often did, that she could see his eyes. “Ah’m sorry.”

Hands grabbed hold of her. On her shoulder, down her arms, gripping her hands, her legs, her ankles. Arms snaked around her torso, embraced her and as Scott watched in sorrow, the echoes pulled her away from the porch and threw her to the ground. Rogue looked up and saw familiar faces, ones she was used to seeing coated in expressions of concealed disdain, pity, suspicion... and in other occasions, love, concern, care.

Kitty, Kurt, Lance, Fred, Toad, Jean, Logan, Sam, Bobby, Jamie, Risty, Tabitha, Amara, Ray, Jubilee, Henry McCoy, Erik Lensher, even Charles Xavier... they were drawing closer, and she, lying in the middle of their circle, was too afraid to move, because their expressions were unequivocally and unanimously _hungry._

Rogue shut her eyes tightly and waited for the inevitable.

In a second, hands were all over her: touching, groping, caressing, poking and prodding, growing harsher and more painful with each passing contact. Before long, screaming joy, the crowd was clawing away at her – Rogue tried to stop them, lifted her arms up and tried to wrench her legs away, but somebody was holding down her ankles and there was nothing she could do... she could feel her clothes being ripped to shreds as nails were raked into her skin, drawing blood, bringing pain and she screamed out, screamed and her own screams followed her down... 

* * *

Rogue woke up to a semi-familiar ceiling and discovered that she was unable to move. Her entire body was like a clenched fist – muscles locked and refusing to answer to her most basic commands. Paralyzed, she listened to the thumping in her ears, trying to relax, trying to get the edge off but how was that even possible when her heart was beating too slow, 80 bpm was for sucke... no. What? Who? Fast, quick... oh. Quicksilver’s thoughts.

Slowly, her body started to unlock, gradually giving her control, such as it was, back. She slowly sat up in bed and glanced around, trying to get her bearings. The dorm room, the only coed room on the Academy of Tomorrow campus was somewhat familiar. The beds were on either sides of the room, hers being closer to the large closet space built into the wall. On her left were the windows, cracked open, inviting the night-time chill in. On the other side of the room were study desks, both next to each other. Each bed had a small bedside and Rogue’s showed a digital clock displaying 3:32 in green.

Rogue could hear Scott’s steady breathing, breaking through the ambient hum of the room.

God, her head was throbbing. She felt her eyeballs as what they were – fleshy spheres turning inside sockets. She clenched her fist in attempt to channel the pain somewhere else, but all that brought her was more pain in the form of bone claws tearing through the skin between her knuckles. They extended sharply, making her whimper more from the surprised.

_What..?_

Rogue looked at her hand. There they were, three claws, in proportionate length to her size. Blood was dripping from their roots, where her flesh had been torn.

_Oh no. No... please no..._

Rogue felt herself get lighter and lighter and lighter and it didn’t make sense until she saw the room rising around her. She felt light-headed. She knew the symptom. Desperately, she flailed her arms, one hand still sporting the claws, trying to catch something, anything, but all she could do was grasp at thin air as she phased right through the bed and the floor and down to the next one. She barely had time to try to concentrate before, again, she went down another floor.

_I need to be solid, I need to be solid, I need to be solid..._

Rogue felt her body regain its solid shape in mid-air and had time only to let out a yelp before she fell into somebody’s bed. She panicked – what if she touched whoever was there? What if that person was a mutant? She had enough echoes to contend with as it is, no-

Rogue threw her legs off of the bed and was about to move when two hands (bare, unprotected palms) grabbed her by the arms. Contact.

_Scaleskinburroughscornerpaysexmarlborotrojanphermoneorgasm_

Rogue felt pleasure, pure and sudden, shoot trough her, overtaking her. She gasped. As her chaotic head made way for the next echo, she saw snake eyes gleam in the dark and a girl (Stacy, her name was, Stacy X – she was from Brooklyn and after a certain point, her life was a string of anonymous encounters with many different men with different budget constraints asking for different things to be done to them) completely naked, snarling at her.

Her mouth was open and she was screaming: “What the fuck are you-“

With a clearly sounding _BAMF_, Rogue found herself outside of the dormitory building. Her bare feet dug into the mud, but it wasn’t enough to keep her balance. Rogue desperately waved her arms, trying to keep her footing, but failed and fell face-down.

Her head was buzzing with voices, but one of them slipped through.

It takes a while to get a hang of re-appearing. The trick is to not appear too high above the ground.

_Shut up, Kurt._

* * *

Rogue crawled on all fours and got back onto the cold concrete. She shivered. Late-October Chicago (but she was in Brooklyn, and it was winter, and she had hours to go before she could go home... no.) wasn’t suited for the t-shirt and underwear combo. Of course, even that was too much, who needed clothes when you were the ice-man himself?

Wait. No. She wasn't the Iceman. Those were Bobby’s thoughts.

Rogue felt a crawling sensation and looked at her hands. Her fingers had frozen solid.

Rogue sat there, covered in mud and cold, waiting for something else to kick in, somebody else to have a go at driving her body. She looked at her hand. The claws were still there. Clenching her teeth, she tried to prepare herself for the pain before retracting them.

Pain. Sharp. Sudden. Lingering. 

* * *

It took Rogue a while to settle the voices in her head down enough to generate a conscious enough thought. When she managed to separate the ones she didn’t find agreeable, she just clung to the ones she thought she could agree with. That was as close as she was going to get to her own thoughts, she knew.

Those in agreement said that she should go inside. She was going to catch a cold. The dorm buildings, however, had swipe-locks, you’d swipe your ID and they would open for a short amount of time. Of course, having forgotten to wear her ID badge necklace, again, she had no way of getting in.

Why don’t you bang on windows, scream your lungs off, or try shouting ‘fire’?

_Tabitha..._

Oh come on! It’s either that or looking for shit to throw at the doors and deal property damage you know you can’t pay off. Much as I love the mayhem, this shit? Not worth it. So why don’t you get some blue fur on that pale butt of yours and zap on home?

_It doesn’t work that way, Boom-Boom. I’m not in control._

And who’s fault is that?

_Shut up, Jean, nobody asked you._

* * *

It took Rogue nearly an hour of shivering and going from window to window to find somebody who would help her get inside. She didn’t know why this girl was not as indifferent as the rest until she stepped into the light and Rogue saw her skin. It resembled mercury – it was, seemingly, just a dense, silvery liquid keeping the perfect human shape. Rogue sheepishly thanked her for letting her in and hurried up to the fourth floor, leaving a trail of muddy footprints behind.


	2. Therein

Scott woke up to a knock on the door. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached for his visor. Once he had it on, he glanced at the clock. Almost five A.M., in thin, bright red numbers. He got up and went to the door. There she was, covered in mud, legs clamped together, arms around herself, shivering, shaking.

Scott stepped aside and Rogue walked in. She located a hoodie slung onto the back of her desk chair – a hoodie covered in mud stains and a few spots of dried blood that wouldn't wash off. She wrapped it around herself and sat down. Scott knew the routine. He had established it after the first time this had happened when he wasn’t around.

It started with a pre-set, simple question.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Not much.”

“Any physical changes?”

“Mah fingers were Bobby’s for a while and... claws. Bone claws.”

“No healing factor?”

“Nah. Just the pain.”

Scott ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“Okay, why don’t you take a shower.” He said, “Wash some of this off. Then I’ll take a look at the wounds.”

She could only smile gratefully. That smile, no matter how many times he saw it, caught him off-guard. The gratitude of the broken stung, because there was something so very wrong in finding the simplest of things boons from life.

* * *

Rogue discarded her clothing and stepped into the warm water. Just the sensation of it, after she had been out in the cold for so long, made her shudder, but she enjoyed it. She remembered that wave of pleasure – like a physical blow, from her head down to her toes... the water was so warm, so comforting...

The water feels better between scales. Just imagine if your veins were flowing through the cracks. The water flows over those and then pools at your feet... mmm, just thinking about it, makes me wanna... hey, what do you know, it makes you wanna, too.

Rogue became aware of her wounded hand slipping down, fingers cruising across her stomach and lower... lower...

You want to. Admit it.

...blood slipping through the gaps between her fingers...

_Shut up... he’s waiting... for me..._

Snakeskin, snakeskin... don’t you feel how smooth that is? How textured? Ribbed for everyone’s pleasure. You know, even with all the shit I took, this is still the best thing I’ve ever felt. Because it’s nobody’s fuck. It’s mine.

Rogue felt the cold tile against her cheek as she bent over slightly. Flesh slid on linoleum.

_No... stop... not..._

Her fingers, touching, circling, insistent.

God, you're pent up. All that repression, can't be good for the soul. Why don't you let it out? Come on, let's go!

_Stop it..._

A light moan escaped her lips and she bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from it. But she couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but feel it...

You feel it, don’t you? Ah yes, yes, that’s it, right there, right _there_... fuck, that feels good... you _have_ done this before...

_Stop..._

Her free hand slammed against the wall.

Oh, and all those other times... were you thinking of _him?_ You _were,_ weren’t you? Hah, you definitely were! That's why you're all stiff whenever you're naked here, 'cause you know he's just over there...

_I..._

Did you imagine his hands over your body? His lips on yours? His tongue all around you, inside you?

_No, I..._

How would he feel? How big is his cock? Mmm, you have wondered what it’s like, didn’t you?

_Why are you doing this?_

Because you won’t... and you really should.

Rogue tried to keep herself from moving. She was weak in the knees but her hand wasn’t stopping, it wasn’t letting up. She caught a mouthful of flesh on her arm and bit down hard, trying to flush the pleasure out with pain, but it was doing nothing. If anything, it was enhancing it, making her toes curl, making her body shake.

_Stacy, please... I don’t..._

You say no, but the way you move your hips and the way you keep trying not to make a sound say fuck yes, sir, may I have more?

_I can’t... I can’t..._

You want this. You can’t convince me that you don’t. Hell, I _am_ you now. So why don’t you shut up and enjoy it? It’ll be over quicker if you don’t resist, you know.

_It's not..._

Somewhere inside, she was praying for the sound of the running water to drown out her own voice.

* * *

When the forced orgasm Stacy-by-Rogue wrenched out of her let her finally let her gain control again, Rogue broke into tears and furiously scrubbed down every inch of skin meanwhile. By the time she managed to sob, Stacy-by-Rogue was gone; vanished with the last of what was supposed to have been the afterglow.

Shame. She was so ashamed.

She looked into the mirror. The whore goddess was still there, but she was no longer a goddess.

Scott, oblivious, was waiting in the other room.

_He must’ve heard... he knows. Oh God, he knows it. Maybe he heard me all those other times, too, maybe he heard me every time and I don’t know how I can do this... even now, he’s waiting for me, knowing what he knows..._

It took her a long time to get out of the bathroom.

* * *

When she came out, she found Scott lounging on his bed, nose in a textbook. She spotted latex surgical gloves on his desk, next to a wad of cotton and their big bottle of iodine. Rogue sat down on her bed, prompting him to get up and put the gloves on. He then came over and knelt in front of her. With gentle fingers, he held her wrist and lifted up her hand to examine the wounds. He gently prodded one, prompting her to wince, but she didn’t pull her hand back. He decided they were shallower than he had first thought.

Rogue tried to avoid looking at him as he carefully disinfected her wounds. She couldn’t face him, not tonight, not now. Not after.

* * *

Afterwards, Scott returned his supplies to where they had come from, kissed the top of her head (sending shivers down her spine and telling her, without a word, that he was worried about her, that he wasn’t sure if he was doing enough, that this was the third time this week, that he just didn’t want to see her like that again) and returned to bed.

He slept. Rogue sat in the dark until sleep claimed her, half an hour before she had to get up. 

* * *

The alarm clock screeching pulled her out of the restless, mercifully dreamless sleep. She looked to Scott’s side and found him gone. She checked the clock. 8 A.M., of course, as every morning. She would get up earlier, but it wasn’t a question of rests, with the unlimited power and stamina she had, she didn’t really need sleep, but just pretending to sleep made all the difference in the world.

Rogue reached to the clock to make it stop. She pressed one finger on it and her finger penetrated the device all the way through, reducing it to a crushed mess of plastic and wiring. Oh yeah, she always had that problem, that’s why she had learned to judge the time of day by the position of the sun. An internal sundial. Timepieces were just too damn fragile.

She got up. She knew she didn’t need clothes, they were just so she wouldn’t have a swarm of cops on her ass about indecency charges as well. So she went to the wardrobe, pulled the door clean off its hinges and set it down. Staring at all of the clothes in front of her, she wondered where she had put her helmet. She normally put it right here, at the bottom of the wadro...

Wait.

Helmet?

Rogue shook her head. No. These weren’t her thoughts. These were the thoughts of Juggernaut. This was his mind.

No. It was her mind. It was the mind of the Rogue.

_I’m not him. I’m not him. I’m not him. I’m not him._

_I am myself. I am the Rogue. I am not them._

She turned to look at the wardrobe door, lying on the floor as if it had always been there and found herself far from being sure of that. 

* * *

Rogue spent five minutes on her laptop before getting dressed, as she often did, to see if Kurt or Kitty had written back to their respective strings of e-mails exchanged ever since she had gotten settled into the Academy of Tomorrow. They had, but Kitty had gone on the longest tangent and Rogue decided to read it after she was done with her day. 

* * *

It was cold outside, the Windy City earning its name. Rogue smiled. She liked winter. It required her to dress in layers, which meant the only exposed patch of skin would be her face. Plus, jeans provided the best protection against the cold and if it were up to her, she’d wear them non-stop. She put on some dark wash jeans, an undershirt, a red long-sleeve t-shirt and a black sweater on. She found her gloves and slipped them on, relishing the familiarity of them. When she was convinced she had enough barriers between herself and the world, she headed down.

The Academy of Tomorrow wasn’t a very large campus, but on certain days, getting to where you wanted to go became an issue, especially for Rogue. The campus’ central point was the library tower, its lower three floors devoted to the actual library and the rest being administrative sections. Emma Frost’s office was at the very top of it. The White Queen dwelling at the top of her tower, she thought.

Her dorm, the Selene building, was directly across from the cluster of lecture halls, which drew a semi-circle around the central tower. Rogue followed the path she always took while munching on one of those breakfast bars Scott kept stocking up in the room. Of course, that was so they could have something to snack on after they’d fucked each other’s brains out, as they should every ni...

_Shut up, Stacy. Just shut the fuck up._

Make me.

* * *

Rogue walked into the library and took a deep breath. It was relatively empty this time of day, which she always appreciated. By the time she’d get out of therapy, of course, the halls would be a little more difficult to navigate. Deciding to enjoy it but not delay her appointment, she followed the main hallway to the elevator.

Emma Frost was waiting.

* * *

Emma Frost’s office took up the entirety of the top floor, so much so that the elevator shaft became just a thick column sitting in the middle of everything. The east wall was a panoramic view screen of reinforced glass, benefiting from daylight as much as possible. Emma Frost’s mahogany desk housing her sleek laptop and several external drives, filled to the brim with documentation. The north wall, spanning the distance of the entire floor and going onto the west, was one big bookcase. The west wall was her therapy corner, housing the obligatory comfortable, black leather couch, the armchair facing it, the Persian rugs laid out in between them... several tall lamps standing on the side shed relaxing, orange light, completing the setting.

Rouge found Emma Frost sitting in the therapist's chair. She was clad, as she often was, in a pure white business suit and idly sipping tea from a porcelain cup. When Rogue entered the room she winced. She cocked her head slightly to the side and then shrugged it off. Rogue, unsure of herself, walked around her chair and sat down on the couch.

“Good morning, Ms. Frost.” she said.

Emma Frost set her cup down.

“Good morning, Rogue. Sleep well?”

“Not especially.”

Again, that small tilt of the head. Rogue raised an eyebrow. What was up with her?

Maybe she knows your dirty little secret. Hell, maybe she felt it.

_Stacy, I swear, if you don't shut up..._

“Alright.” Emma Frost said, “Why don’t you lie down, then, so we can get started?”

Rogue laid down and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, she was two years ago and a thousand miles away.

* * *

The fabric of reality seemed to bend, slouching towards Bethlehem, leaning down and it converged on her.

Everything around her seemed to come at her at once; the sharp, alcoholic smell of his aftershave, the smell of wet grass and the night air; the feeling of the support beam under the bleachers, it’s downward curve digging into the small of her back; his lips on her neck, his hands around her back, his palm warm, his tongue slithering across bare flesh, making her shiver; she could hear the ambient pulse of the world, humming, faintly beneath all the soft, swishing sounds of fabric and the disgusting noise of flesh.

Shudder, running across her entire body. Goosebumps.

Beneath the blind rush of her body, beneath the instinctive motions she made, the flesh she kneaded between her teeth, the moans she let out, there was pure, cold logic. Every bit of data deciphered into thought, into abstractions just so her head could wrap itself around the process.

Of all the thoughts in all the moments of the world, she remembered her father. His face, his shy yet forthcoming attitude regarding the subject...

He couldn’t know. He couldn’t know.

He couldn’t see her like this.

Another shiver and a sound escaped through her teeth and she shook, feeling it. She closed her eyes.

Fingers clenching the soft fabric of the varsity jacket.

This was as good as it was going to get.

She clenched her teeth and bore it. She was tired of being mocked, tired of being made to be the virgin of the group – why should she be that when she could have him? He wasn’t so bad. He cared a reasonable amount and had some experience, more than her anyway, and she could still enjoy herself.

Besides, Scott wasn’t going to be going much further anyway.

Scott.

Of all the thoughts in all the moments of the world...

* * *

She was now, in the Academy of Tomorrow and lying on the couch... no. She was someone else now. Split down the middle, the latter part of her consciousness told her a different story. 

* * *

There was nothing but the overwhelming monolith of a reality, hers. The fact that she was there, her heart beating out of her chest that he could feel through his lips and for him. The warmth of the flesh against his, skin-on-skin... shivered, tried not to let on.

Was it working? Was this how it was supposed to be?

He couldn’t help but turn the twisted, absolute logic of the situation upside-down and analyze every moan, every shiver, every minute movement and facial expression... he had to know. Was it how it was supposed to be?

There and then, he had never felt as exposed, as naked and as unsure of himself. On the field, facing down a defense player, that was a different ballgame altogether. He was the fucking Hulk out there and couldn’t be stopped.

But the small, seemingly defenseless presence of Taryn Fujioka stripped him of all his strength.

So he went on, going in as deep as he could, trying to remember the visual examples he had spent most his time with and trying to imitate it the best he could.

Was it working?

He tasted her skin. The slight bitterness of her Jasmine perfume, alcoholic substance lingering on her neck. No man’s land. That’s what Al Pachino had said in that one movie; and there he was, planting a flag smack in the fucking middle of it.

Fumbling with his clothes. He could just see himself there, under the bleachers, his letterman jacket crumpled up under her powerful grip, trying to get the fucking fly open.

At least he was sure that he was better than Scott “Sunglasses-at-night” Summers.

He heard her emit a sound that he couldn’t quite describe or recognize.

Was it working?

Was this how it was supposed to be?

* * *

She was now, here and lying on the couch... no. She was three years ago and a thousand miles away, on both sides of the same story. Sam Peterson and Taryn Fujioka both at the same time. She writhed, twisting and buckling, her body perceiving both sides of the physical sensation simultaneously, giving her physical feedback on organs she didn’t possess and actions she wasn’t performing.

“Stop...” she heard herself say, but it was just an echo, a half-heard sound so far away that it didn’t matter.

* * *

Push-pull, rise-recede, leave-return, rise-fall, push-pull, tug-of-war, tug-of-lust, tug-of-flesh... riptide, pulling her to both sides, tearing apart her insides... blood trickling down naked thighs...

...pain, sharp and sad as it ever was.

She screamed.

He screamed.

They all screamed through Rogue’s mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not trying for smut, believe it or not. The approach I take to Rogue's condition is through the filter of mental illness, which is your own mind turning against you. In Rogue's case, it's a bit more than just her thoughts or mind, especially since the echoes can and have been demonstrated in-universe to take over.


	3. Zero Distance

Rogue felt her throat strain and her lungs cry out for air, on fire from the scream. Taking in a much-needed breath, she tried to reel her senses in. She found herself sprawled across Emma Frost’s couch, her sweater thrown off, one hand clutching at her own breast under her bra. She had somehow managed to unbutton her jeans and slide them down to her knees. She sat up, her breathing labored and felt her cheeks burn bright red. Flushed was putting it mildly.

Emma Frost, to her credit, was just sitting in her armchair, massaging her temples with the tips of her fingers.

Rogue sprang to action and pulled her jeans up, adjusted herself and pulled on her sweater. She then sat up, put her hands on her knees. All prim and proper, just like how she was taught.

Emma Frost snuck a glance at her and managed a rather agonized smile.

“All nice and proper.” She commented.

Rogue flinched.

“Rogue, tell me...” Emma Frost said, “Has anything happened last night?”

Rogue bit her lower lip.

“Ah... Ah phased through the floor. Went down two floors. There was this girl when Ah became solid, Ah... sorta fell into her bed.”

“And?”

“Before Ah could do anythin, she grabbed me. Ah ‘ported on outta there and ended up outside the dorm.”

“The girl, who touched you, what was her name?”

“Stacy. Stacy X.”

“Ah.” Emma Frost pursed her lips into an all-knowing smile, “That explains the distinctively sexual vibe you’ve been giving off, not to mention... But that wasn’t what I was asking.”

“It wasn’t?”

Emma Frost shook her head. “Not quite. Has anything else happened last night?”

Rogue bit her lower lip. She nervously twiddled her thumbs, trying to come up with a plausible lie. Emma Frost clacked her tongue.

“Rogue, I’m a telepath. I can tell. Just tell me. I know that it cannot be sex. That leaves only one other possibility.”

“...she made me.”

Emma Frost raised an eyebrow, expectant.

“Stacy.” Rogue said, “She made me do it.”

“It’d be preposterous to think that this was your first such experience.”

“Ah’m losin control. Ah don’t know what Ah’m doin and what they are makin me do... Ah don’t know if it’s me doin anything anymore.”

“Answer me a simple question, then. What kind of music do you like?”

Rogue raised an eyebrow, surprised. “That’s... how’s that relevant?”

“You carry an iPod on your person at all times, which tells me that it is a type of media that interests you. So what kind of music?”

“Ah like...” emptiness. A void where her thoughts should be. But slowly, some semblance of reference emerged, “Ah... Ah mean, the Professor likes classical an’ opera, so do Ah... so does Magneto. Ah like p... no, Ah mean, Kitty likes pop and stuff, electronic and Ah... Ah mean Lance... fuck...”

“...you do realize you are just reciting what your echoes’ tastes are.”

“Ah can’t help it, tovarisch Frost, Ah...”

Pause. Rogue clenched her teeth. It hit Emma Frost like a wave, her frustration. She bore it. “I didn’t know you spoke Russian.”

“Ah don’t. Ah do... Ah mean, Piotr Rasputin does. God...”

Another, a deeper sigh from Emma Frost. “I’ll be forthcoming with you, and that involves telling you one thing: you will not like it.”

“...okay?”

“Rogue, you aren’t losing control. You are losing _yourself._ What you’ve just experienced here, is sort of a composite echo. You’re not even sure which echo you are anymore – you’re remembering events from multiple perspectives, because your self has been eroded that much.”

“What’re you sayin? That Ah am an echo? Ah’m becoming someone else?“

“You aren’t even _one_ echo anymore. You aren’t becoming someone else. You’re becoming _everyone else._”

Emma Frost let it sink in. Rogue’s head was buzzing with the affirmations, celebrations, protestations and lamentations of her echoes. Looking into that downward spiral, she sought what she had always sought – herself. The Rogue. What did the Rogue think? What did the Rogue have to say about all this?

No answer. The Rogue wasn’t there.

All that was there was a suggestion...

“Ah, yes.” Emma Frost said, “Mr. Summers. You routinely touch him. Or, should I say, he routinely touches you?”

“How’d you-“

“He’s the clearest thought you have. Curious enough, in that chaotic mess you call a head, he’s... distinctive, but not oppressive. Though more pronounced, he’s not invading you, he’s not trying to overcome you. That, I find very interesting, hence my asking, has anything happened last night?”

Rogue saw her expression and understood that it was a question, again.

“No. How can anythin happen, how can...” Rogue’s gaze dropped to the floor, “Nothin happened.”

“That so...” Emma Frost smiled, “Well, then, that’s it for today. I’d like for you to start coming in on Wednesdays as well from now on."

"Twice a week?"

"I thought you'd be improving. You're not. Does Wednesdays suit your schedule?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Off you go.”

Rogue retrieved her coat and her messenger bag and headed for the door. She tapped on the elevator’s single button and waited. Emma Frost called from her armchair.

“By-the-bye, are you still using melatonin?”

Rogue nodded. “To sleep, yeah. Not that it works or anythin...”

“Stop. Stop with the antidepressants as well. Let’s have you on your default setting for a while. No painkillers, no drugs of any kind, not even birth control-“

Rogue burst out laughing. “Ms. Frost, what the hell am _Ah_ gonna do with birth control pills?”

The elevator announced its arrival with a soft ding. Emma Frost hadn’t said anything.

“G’day, Ms. Frost.”

“Say hi to Mr. Summers for me.”

* * *

Rogue hurried to class. She had two periods of introduction to sociology now and a third period free. She and Scott had coordinated their schedules around each other’s at the beginning of the term. They had lunch four days a week and today was one of their a-free-period-and-lunch days.

She felt ravenous, even then.

_Maybe I shouldn’tve skipped breakfast like that... maybe Juggernaut should have needed breakfast._

* * *

The class passed by in a blur. Her head was filled with Erik Lensherr spewing anecdotes about the Weberian concept of the household, constantly running interference and phasing out Professor Shaw’s voice. She jotted down a broken mess of jumbled jargon and well-thought out theories, most of which her hand was quoting verbatim from all the books she had never read, but some of her echoes had practically memorized; and Colossus had the inside track on what a working class family was comprised of.

He missed Illyana.

Rogue missed Illyana.

* * *

When the class ended, Rogue stuffed her notebook into her bag and headed for the lecture hall’s door. It led her out to the hallway and into the sea of rushing students. For a few moments, as it happened every time, Rogue stood there with her back to the wall, clutching her bag, trying to shrink as much as possible. It took her quite a few suggestions to be able to start slinking through the anonymous bodies in the crowd. The thick of it choked her from the first two steps and she only made it about fifteen feet before breathing became the only important thing to her.

She curved and slithered and slid and brushed past the students surrounding the hallways, lost in her sense of claustrophobia. She hunched, pushing her shoulders in and pressing her breasts together in attempt to become smaller. Breath knotted in her chest, the hallway seemed to stretch out into eternity. The red-brick ceiling, curving upwards, seemed to be bearing down on her and everyone around her... shoulder-to-shoulder, flesh to flesh, too crowded, it was too crowded, too many people...

Breathless. Absolutely breathless.

For a moment, she lost herself in that small space between abject fury and mindless need for release. She hated crowds, absolutely despised them with a burning passion. Too many patches of uncovered skin, too many limbs flailing around carelessly.

The crowd made her want to shrink, but she couldn’t. She wanted all of them away. She wanted to touch and kiss and caress and slide against all of them. Every single one.

But for now, she just focused on going further down the hall and then maybe to that inner courtyard opening in the center of the faculty building. In desperate need to get there, she hastened her steps and slithered through the dense river of people.

Blind rush, onwards, she needed out.

* * *

She didn’t see it coming.

Rogue brushed against a blonde. Unable to stop herself, wanting out, out of here, out of this place (_out of this dump, house, river, situation, mansion, head...)_ she barreled on through. The blonde stumbled, kept her balance and managed to steady herself.

“Watch where you’re...” the blonde started, stumbling, one hand reaching to grab hold.

Fear screamed inside Rogue as the aversion to another’s touch exploding towards surface.

Palm on her face, fingertips touching her eyelids. Contact.

* * *

Flash of memories, overbearing, on extreme fast-forward. Spreading over her mind, pushing everything belonging to her identity, already kept afloat by the barest of senses of it, aside completely. Got rid of everything but itself, making room. Then, for the briefest of moments, she wasn’t in the hallway anymore. She was in a barely-registered ride throughout another life.

Rogue stumbled, almost losing her footing and reached out to something, anything, to hold onto. Nothing there. She took a few clumsy steps to the side, the crowd around her moving away. She finally snapped one leg into position and strained against it, keeping her balance.

For the sixteen years crammed into a single instant, her name was Paige Elisabeth Guthrie.

With the name now spreading across her mind, Rogue forgot herself a little more.

She sensed Paige’s thoughts and lived her life with more than just a passing glimpse. Paige liked to collect knives, because they reminded her in some unconscious part of herself, of her father.

_Her father’s hands, mine worker’s hands, thick, hair on the back of them. Grasping a wooden block and a carving knife._

_That thick sliding sound of excess pieces being chipped away. The knife, gleaming, scattering stray pieces of wood, in those hairy hands._

* * *

Somewhere far away, the Rogue fell to her knees, the cold, hard ground sending sharp pain with the impact. 

* * *

_Her father. The coal mines, where he worked. It wasn’t a sight so much as it was an impression, the impression little Paige had from hearing about it. Tunnels spiraling around each other, like vines knotted, reaching into the heart of the earth. Walls encrusted with coal (to Paige, black rocks that are usual rocks, just are too dirty to be called rocks stretching in every direction.)_

* * *

The Rogue groaned. The sense was delayed, like belonging to another body entirely. She couldn’t focus. The ground was slowly rising... 

* * *

_Soot on his hands every night when he came home and gave her a hug. The mixed smell of dust, sweat, coal, wood and the road. Road salt. A weary scent that she remembers belonging to a happier time._

_Her father. Death._

_Lung collapse due to inhaling too much of the fumes. Breathless._

_Her father. Always, her father._

_She remembered wishing, hard as she could, that they weren’t made of all this soft tissue and skin and fragile organs. Wishing that they were made of diamonds, like coal, but like her father’s wooden figures, chipped away at until they were the right shape, size and hardness._

_Wishing they were made to withstand._

* * *

Voices in the distance, bleeding into Paige’s life, her life. Voices shouting a name Paige doesn’t recognize, a name Paige doesn’t know. A name neither of them, neither Paige nor Paige-by-Rogue know.

_“Rogue!”_

Familiar. Warm.

* * *

_The kids at the playground always taunted her. Fatherless girl, they called her, fatherless. Where’s your daddy, fatherless girl? Where did he go?_

_The older girls pulled her hair and pinched and scratched her. Where’s your daddy, why can’t he help you?_

_Little Jay would always come to her aid, but having nothing more than a few soft punches and a few demands to be let go of, couldn’t do much. Sam, well._

_Sam was always beating up boys that dared call him a bastard._

_Her father. Dead._

_That was all she would remember in the years after the fact - that his defining characteristic had switched to being dead and had stayed that way._

_Her father. She missed her father._

_She hadn’t wanted to tell Jay that father wasn’t coming back no more._

* * *

The voice. Calling. Wanting to be heard.

"Rogue!"

Not there. Someone else now.

* * *

_The older girls calling her names, beating her up. She defended herself with flailing kicks and punches, but none of them were enough. She wasn’t hard enough, not made of sterner stuff._

_Her father’s hands. Rough but caring. Gentle._

_No, she thought while on the ground, being kicked by the older girls, no. I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be this weak. I don’t want to be made of things this weak, I don’t..._

_This weakness was making her the victim, this weakness of materials. She wanted to be made of diamonds, not soft flesh to be victimized, diamonds to be contended with, diamonds to be respected..._

* * *

The Rogue screamed, her body thrashing, as the skin on her hands was split open from the inside, revealing a shining, hard substance tearing its way put.

“Oh, God, what the-“ his voice. Beloved voice. _It hurts... it hurts... please make it stop..._

“That’s my mutation!” _go away... go away... I’m not you... I’m not..._

* * *

_Rocks, trees, soil, gold, silver, steel, iron, harder, stronger... anything but weak flesh... anything at all..._

* * *

“Is it supposed to be painful?” voice of the beloved. _Save me. Save me._

“It’s... no. It’s not...” _Go away. Go away._

* * *

_Her skin cracked... underneath, there was a second skin now._

* * *

“Rogue!”

The colors of grey washed out everything else, drowning Paige Elisabeth Guthrie and pushing her aside. Paige-by-Rogue now suppressed, Rogue experienced the rest of her life in the fraction of a fraction of a second.

She opened her eyes and saw Scott standing over her... Scott-by-Rogue collided with Paige-by-Rogue, merged and drowned her own thoughts out. 

* * *

“Give her some space!”

The sea of bodies receded, forming an empty pond in the middle, containing only Scott, Paige and Rogue. Scott bent over Rogue and tried to see if there was any damage. There seemed to be none.

“What happened?” Scott asked.

“She just sort of... crashed against me.” Paige said, “I didn’t think nothin of it, maybe she was just not payin no attention, so I pushed her away.”

“Was there skin contact?”

“Well, yeah, but..." realization, "Wait, is that why-“

“Shit... Rogue, can you hear me?”

Rogue’s eyes told him that she was conscious and did recognize him.

“Rogue? Tell me you’re here, I need to know you’re here.”

_You found me..._

Paige-by-Rogue, screaming, joined in by Sam-by-Rogue, Everyone-by-Rogue, wailing, a choir of chaos singing in her head...

“Scott...”

Jean, echoing. Why don’t you take advantage of this little predicament too, you fucking _whore!?_

Kitty, jubilant. Live a little, girl!

Charles, stern. You need help. You always did, you weak, pathetic waste.

_Shut up... shut up..._

Taryn, vindictive. C’mon, Scott wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole and you know it!

Stacy, somehow indifferent. Mmm, look at those lips, I can just go for a vacation right there.

Toad, disgusted. Ewww! Seriously! What the fuck, man? It’s like kissing cousins!

_Let me breathe..._

Pietro, lightning-fast. Knowwhatyoushoulddo? Grabhimbythehairandkissthelivingshitoutofhim, scrapeouttheremaindersofthatGreychickwithyourlizardtogue, leaveanicerichaftertastetokeephimcomingbackforseconds. Makeitatonguetwister!

Paige, crying. How am I gonna tell little Jay..? What are we gonna do? 

* * *

Rogue grabbed Scott by the hair and pulled him in. Their lips met. Rogue shifted. Held him cheek-to-cheek. She needed him. In that moment, more than anything else, she needed him.

As she drew him in, more and more, something inside her was screaming. Thief. Thief. Thief.

_I need... I need to..._

_I need you._

* * *

The colors of grey crashed over the mess of echoes and drowned them out. The last thing Rogue consciously experienced was Paige screaming at her that she was killing him.


	4. Cornered

The red-brick walls of the orphanage had fallen to decay. Dark strips of moss appeared to be oozing out of the bricks and the color of the walls had turned a dismal purple. The courtyard behind it was an enclosed space, walled in on all sides and the ground was covered with a thin layer of snow. It was still snowing, but gently, as if unwilling to disturb those below. The ground was bare, without any features, but the walls around them had pieces of a plane jutting out of them – as if the plane itself had been embedded into the bricks.

Rogue saw Jean right next to her, huddled in the corner, shivering while trying to read a book. She looked to the other side of the courtyard and saw Scott, sitting there, next to Rogue...

_Wait... what? What am I doing over there?_

Rogue approached them, cautiously. As she got closer, she saw that Scott wasn’t wearing his glasses. His eyes, gorgeous hazel, were looking at the other Rogue. The ruby quartz glasses were held in between her thin fingers.

“I remember a few colors.” Scott was saying, “White, like snow. These walls... hell I couldn’t forget them if I tried.”

“Ya know...” with one finger on his chin, she turned his head, “You’ve got the sun in your eyes.”

He turned away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You make it sound like it’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?”

Scott shook his head. “No. No it isn’t.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You know what the worst thing is?" Scott said, "It’s not being alone. It’s not having everything one second and then having to leap into the darkness with nothing but a small hand, too weak to hold yours. It’s not feeling that hand slip away, screaming inside that if you were just strong enough, you wouldn’t be swept away by the wind.”

She scooted closer. He sensed her presence as a growing thing, like a shadow moving away from light and stretching out, leaping higher and crawling lower. An expanding, pulsating existence slowly being draped over him. He swallowed, hard.

Rogue, watching them, thought - _n__o. This __i__sn’t supposed to be like this._

“What’re you so afraid of?” the other Rogue asked.

“Loneliness.” He said, “That’s the worst.”

“You’re not alone.” the other Rogue said, moving a few more inches, closing the last vestiges of the distance, slowly.

“Lonely goes a few shades deeper than alone.” Scott said, “You know that.”

“Ah do. But not no more. Ah don’t have to. You’re here.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Ah know.”

The final inch conquered, she brushed up against his arm. He felt her presence wrap him in a sense of ease, a sense of familiarity. There was no need for the lies, for the bullshit. For the front of Cyclops, for the subterfuge... no need for any of it.

“It’s easier to pretend.” He said, “Pretend that I know what the fuck I’m doing. That I have a way, a solution. That I’m in control, that I’m made of steel, that I can take anything, that I can handle this, all of it. That I could. I can’t.”

Her arm, slowly traveling around his to tangle up with it. Closer now, the rest of her slowly moving towards him. Closeness reminding him just how deep despair goes in moments like these.

“You know, I’m always cursing my glasses and telling people left and right how bad it is to see the world in the shades of a singular color. But thing is, it’s all a lie, a front. It’s easier to pretend that it’s my real issue.”

No words. He found her an eager listener: her beautiful, green eyes wide and full of curiosity, her ears perked.

Her fingers, encased in gloves, caressing the back of his hand.

“I need my glasses, I need the visor. I need them to prevent them from seeing where I’m really looking. They all assume I’m looking at them. They are right.”

Still listening.

“I envy them. All of them. I need them, so they don’t see me looking, so they don’t know... so they all see what they want to see and I... see everything. That I see you.”

He turned to her and found her barely away. She had turned towards him, her other arm coming in closer, drawing an arc and finally embracing him.

Rogue found a knot in his chest, mobile. Almost up to her throat now. She watched, breathless.

“I see you.” He said, “Pretending nobody sees you. Pretending not to see anybody, but seeing everybody, seeing everything and envying them all. Envying them for their simplicity, their carefree existence... hating them for it. Loathing each and every one of them. Loathing them as I do.”

“It’s not mah fault.” Rogue said, “But Ah am sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Her hand embracing him followed a trail down his neck and back. It slowly slid off of him, like silk, light in its touch. He stiffened up when he saw her hand holding the glasses slowly rise.

“No.” he said.

She leaned closer. He couldn’t help but take a sharp breath. She was close –too close, too close for comfort, too close for anything- and gently, her body brushed against his. She moved up, her breath trailing along his neck.

“There’s more to loneliness than just bein without no company." the other Rogue said, "There’s so much more – ya know as well as Ah do that even if they wanna, they can’t know that. Ah do. Ah know what it’s like. Ah know what it’s like ta be in the crowd and not belong to no group.”

Her hair, tickling his skin, her lips, just a hair’s breadth away from him. Silently, she...

She held the ruby quartz glasses with both hands. She stared into his eyes, a small smile on the corner of hers.

“Ya know why Ah have to do this.” she said.

“No.” he tried to withdraw, but she reached out with one hand and held him firmly in place. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move away. He couldn’t escape. He knew what she intended to do and it was the worst thing, the worst possible thing anyone could do, the worst kind of evil to be visited upon him.

Rogue, watching the other herself, shivered.

“Don’t-don’t put the glasses on... please...” Scott begged.

“Ah have to. It’s a part of you. It’s you.”

“No... please don’t...”

“Shhhh...”

One hand on the back of his neck, gentle, yet firm. She whispered small nothings to him, her voice barely audible. He could feel it coming, he could feel the glasses rising in her hand, rising to meet the place they had been attached to ever since that day, ever since...

“Don’t put the glasses on, I’m begging you, just...”

She leaned in, one hand at her temple, holding the frame. He tried to move away, but she pulled him in. The glasses slid into place, their familiar, light frame against his temples as she leaned in. Their lips met. He embraced her, pulled her closer, pulled her in and held her in place, desperate in his need to hold onto her, to anything at all.

Rogue turned away. She couldn’t watch.

Alone in her corner, Jean was crying.

* * *

Rogue woke up to a monochrome, red world and the alien feeling of the visor on her face. She was used to it by now, seeing the world like this. She was used to stitching in color tags into all of her clothes so that she could coordinate them. But that wasn’t important right now, what _was_ important was finding out what had happened. She looked around the room and found Kurt, in full uniform and with his image inducer turned off, perched atop a chair by the window. Upon seeing her move, his eyes practically lit up.

“Finally, you’re avake.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“That’s a little complicated.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days.”

“Why was I out? Why am I here?”

Kurt sighed. “You drained Scott. He’s hier too, two rooms over.” Seeing her lack of a reaction, Kurt asked, “Vhat?”

“...is that some kinda joke?”

“Vha-at? Vhat do you mean?”

“Don’tcha recognize me, Kurt? How could I drain myself, and why would I do that in the first place? Ah can’t do nothin like... wait." she clacked her tongue, "Why do Ah have this accent? Why would Ah...”

Kurt was bearing a mixed expression made of trace amounts of sadness, confusion, dejection and concern.

“Wait...” Rogue said, “Ah’m not Scott... am Ah?”

Slowly, almost cautiously, Kurt shook his head.

“Ah’m Rogue. Yeah, Ah’m Rogue.”

Kurt’s expression sank. "I didn’t knov.” He said, “I didn’t knov it was this bad.”

“It’s not. It’s just-just that Ah took a little too much from him is all, ya know? He’s here, right? He’s awake?”

“I don’t knov, Jean is with him.”

“...who else is here?”

“Nice job covering it up, sis. Really believed it.”

“Shut up.”

Kurt smiled widely, displaying his pure white teeth and sharpened canines. “Jean’s hier, of course. Jamie insisted, for some reason. Kitty. She vent down to get us some coffee. And, uhh... there’s the Professor.”

_Of course._

I don’t see what your trouble is with Charles, child. He has done questionable things, yes, but haven’t we all? He was bolder during our tenure together, you know. Bolder, adventurous and inquisitive. But he never crossed the line into casual apathy and he never did anything if he thought it would do someone harm in some way.

_A bastard with the best intentions or the most evil plans is still a bastard, Mr. Lensherr._

Now **I** can get behind that!

_Shut up, Juggernaut._

This is juvenile. Really juvenile. Is this what you think of the man who gave you everything?

_Nobody asked you, Jean._

Well, I for one think he’s shifty, that bald freak! He didn’t even gimme a chance, man!

_Toad, this isn’t about you..._

Well, you’re gonna face up to him, right? Bada bing, bada boom, girl, you can fuckin’ own his wrinkly ass!

_Tabitha, please just..._

What’re you afraid of, a telepath? I eat telepaths for breakfast, and you know it – it’s Pietro who’s scared shitless of ‘em.

_Wanda I..._

You know what you should do?

You know what you should do?

You know what you should do?

You know what you should

You know what you

You know

You should

You oughta give ‘im something

Step aside and then

Wham! Right to the jaw

Shake it up a bit and

“Shutupshuthup-_shut up!”_

Rogue felt that her hands were cupped over her ears, pressing down hard, one finger dangerously close to the firing stud on her visor. She was trembling.

Kurt’s hand, protected by a glove, was on her back. “Rogue...”

“Ah’mokay... Ah’mokay...” she panted, “Is there... you got’ny clothes for me?”

“Uhh, yeah, the ones you vere vearing vhen they brought you in.”

“Well, where are they?”

“I don’t think you should be up...”

“Ah gotta see him, Kurt. Gotta make sure he’s okay.”

“I think you gotta make sure you’re okay first, sis... should I call doctor?”

Rogue huffed in frustration, “The fuck's a doctor gonna do? Apply 20 ccs of brain bleach?”

“Maybe... do they do that hier?”

A moment of silence. Rogue tried to hold it in, but couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. She laughed heartily, feeling her body shake and felt something pleasant pour out of her. Kurt, standing on the side, was looking extremely unsure of himself – as if he didn’t know whether he should laugh along or if she was laughing at his expense.

“Ah missed you.” She said.

Kurt grinned. “I’m unforgettable, vhat can I say?”

“Yeah, right!”

* * *

Putting on her clothes helped her none. Her uniform, despite its unfortunate connotations, was a unique piece of clothing, it could define her, it could set the boundaries for the Rogue. But the rest of it, the clothes she was putting on now, despite having some identity, had nothing too specific, nothing to help her define herself.

“You look better already.” Kurt assured her. She doubted it. “Vant me to come with?”

“No.” Rogue said, “It’s not that Ah don’t... ‘preciate it or nothin. It’s just...”

Kurt smiled warmly, made Rogue feel that he understood.

“I knov. Go. He’s in Room 9.”

Rogue nodded and stepped out into the hall. She glanced at the room number and saw that she had been in Room 6. Scott should have been to her left, so she followed the sequence of rooms until she heard the familiar voice of Jean Grey and stopped just short of reaching the door of Room 9.

“...so angry.”

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling that, Jean.” The Professor’s voice, still sounding like all the comfort a cup of hot chocolate could offer on a cold day, “It wasn’t exactly a clean break, so to speak.”

“And I look at him, and he’s like this... and I know who’s responsible... and it’s taking everything I have just to keep standing here and not going a few rooms over to-“

“I won’t have that sort of talk.” Charles said.

“Professor, I just... look at him. I tried so hard to convince myself that I hated him... It’d be easier to hate him for leaving like that, for just throwing everything away, even with his own, good reasons... but I couldn’t. I can’t.”

“You have nothing but love for him.”

“Yes. Which is why I’m so angry with her... I always sensed it. Always knew. It was this feeling that radiated off of her... which is impossible to hide,” her voice rose, “, so why don’t you stop eavesdropping? It’s not a polite thing to do.”

Rogue flinched, but it was too late. Of course, they’d sense her. How could they not? Her head was a hornet’s nest, buzzing with stray thoughts and screaming ideas. Her temples were throbbing and there was the ever-present itching sensation in her eyes.

That’s how it feels, every second, every moment. Every day.

_I’m sorry, Scott._

For me? Don’t be. For them? Maybe. For yourself? I’ll see you dead first.

* * *

Rogue, holding her hands behind her back, entered the room with cautious steps. The hospital room was occupied by three distinctive concepts for her: in the middle, lying on the bed with his visor strapped to his face was Scott: warmth and adoration. By his side, standing, wearing a leather jacket on top of her uniform was Jean: envy and jealousy, twofold. Sitting in his wheelchair in what appeared to be a dark suit was Charles Xavier: inconsiderate and deceptive.

And Rogue, standing there with Scott’s spare visor on her face, hands held behind her back, like a child too afraid to receive the scolding she knew was coming.

“Hello, Rogue.” Jean said, her voice failing to disguise a potent (_and rightfully placed,_ Rogue thought) animosity.


	5. The Same

The silence lingered, growing tenser by the second. Rogue had hung her head, only slightly, but she was still staring at Jean Grey through the visor. Charles hadn’t even moved since she had been caught listening. Rogue waited for the inevitable, for Jean to make a move, to reach out with her mind and snuff her out, to break her like a twig, to scream at her, anything.

Nothing happened.

“What happened?” Charles asked, finally.

“Ah just...” Rogue took a deep breath, “Paige came outta nowhere... she touched me. Ah couldn’t take it – it was too much just crammed into mah head. And he was there...”

Jean pressed her lips together until they were just a slit.

“Who’s Paige?” Charles asked.

“Paige Guthrie...” Rogue sighed. She was still for a moment, as if frozen. Then, she sobbed, “Oh Lord, how’m Ah gonna tell Jay... Sam’s alright, he can deal, but how am Ah gonna tell Jay?”

Charles raised an eyebrow.

“Ah shoulda paid more attention, ya know.” Rogue continued, “They said there was a cave-in near Adair. Ah shoulda warned ‘em, told ‘em to be more careful and now...”

“Who’s Sa-“ Jean started, but Charles gestured at her to stop.

“And who’s this fella?” Rogue asked, getting closer to the bed, looking Cyclops up and down, “He one of them new ones?”

“New ones?” Charles asked.

“They said they was gonna get some more hands soon, probably younger. Heh... Sam said Ah’d check ‘em out, maybe get me a boyfriend outta the whole deal – not that Ah was askin for one. So’s he one’a them?”

“Yes. Yes he is.” Charles said, observing her carefully, “He lost his brother in the mines.”

“Dammit, I knew it... just fuckin’ knew it. Sensed it. This,” Rogue peeled off her glove and pinched her hand, “This is too _weak_. Too soft.” She kept pinching, and then, something went through her, and she took a deep breath. She looked woozy.

“Rogue?” Charles asked.

“Professor..?”

“What is your name?”

“Is that a joke?”

“Humor me, please.”

“Ah don’t remember. Was the first thing Ah forgot.”

“Thankfully.” Charles said. He contemplated something for a moment and then straightened his back, “If you’ll both excuse me, I need to see Emma Frost. Jean, will you be alright?”

His expression was a warning. _Behave._

Jean cocked her head up. _I will._

* * *

Rogue wasn’t afraid to speak, not in the least – she wasn’t intimidated by Jean. Never had been. But now, with Scott’s unconscious form between them, she felt that if Jean lashed out, she would be well within her right to do so. Jean, for her part, wasn’t sure if she should speak. She was afraid of what might come out of her mouth, afraid that she’d let a bit too loose... no matter how powerful Rogue might have been, presently, she was just a powerless mutant who was losing control of herself... if she had ever been in control.

Rogue, feeling the itching in her eyes subside, reached with hesitant hands and took off the visor. When she opened her eyes, the world revealed itself with all of the dull, yet beautiful colors. She leaned over and placed the visors near Scott’s hand.

“Okay, there is no right way to do this.” Jean said, “And I admit, I’m not in the best state of mind right now, but-”

“Save it.” Rogue said, “Ah already know what you’re gonna say.”

“Do you, now? And what am I going to say?”

“Ah fucked up. Ah almost killed him. Isn't that it? That this is mah fault, that Ah should just fuck off and leave ya be. In the ballpark yet, Ms. Perfect?”

“Not even close.” Jean said, “If it wasn’t for Scott, I’d kill you where you stand. Reach into your mind and break you like a promise. It’s not that hard.”

“Dare ya.” Rogue said, her eyes flashing with anger, “Fuckin’ double dog-dare ya. Go into mah mind and there ain’t no comin out, precious. 'cause ya know how many people’re in there? How many people you think ya know? How many people you wouldn’t get near ever again if ya knew what was in their souls? More’n you can handle. They’d choke you out. So yeah, be mah guest. C’mon, go in. What's the matter, lost ya nerve?”

Jean, taken aback, looked away. She tried to keep her resolve, but the mere prospect of actually going into that mess was enough to make her back down. Even from where she stood, she could feel the chaos in Rogue’s head: like a congregation of snakes, writhing, slithering.

“Ah losin it.” Rogue said, “And Ah’m not just talkin bout mah head. Ah’m losin everything. He’s here because Ah needed somethin –anythin- to ground mahself. Ah was slipping away, and he was there and...” she choked, “Ah never wanted to hurt him. Never. You should know at least that.”

Jean sighed. This was harder than she thought.

“You have nothing but love for him.” Jean said, choosing to use the Professor’s words.

“...yes.”

“But it’s not just as a friend, is it?” Jean asked, her voice entirely devoid of malice, “Not just as a colleague, or a fellow mutant.”

Rogue bit her lower lip. _Why not? _She asked herself._ Maybe it’s time it’s properly put into words._

She shook her head. “No. It’s not just that. It’s never been just that.”

“It’s not a big secret, you know.” Jean said, “Everyone in the Institute knew. I knew.”

“How did _you_ know?” Rogue asked, eyeing Jean suspiciously.

“I have eyes.” Jean said, “I... also caught stray thoughts a couple of times. I don’t mean to pry.” she hastily added, “I try to stay out of other people’s heads as much as possible, but I can’t always control it. I slip up and... well, I slipped. Didn’t mean to do it that way.”

“Ah guess Ah always thought that if you knew for sure, you’d tell me to fuck off or somethin. Ya know. To stay away from yer fella? Tell me Ah got nothin to give to him, nothin to offer. What would he wanna do with me, anyway...”

“Why would I say any of that?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ you?”

“Rogue, we’ve had our differences, and we probably always will, but that doesn’t mean I’d try to put you down like that. So don’t insult me. I’m not that insecure.” Jean said, “And besides, the stray thoughts I caught weren’t just from you. They were from him, too.”

Jean leaned over and started to gently stroke his hair. Rogue almost couldn’t watch. It was so simple a move, so basic, and yet...

“I’ll admit, I always felt a bit jealous.” Jean said, “He was always genuinely interested in you. Even before you were one of us, he was making the case for you. You know, there was this one simulation, right before the field trip that changed things for us, where you were the surprise boss...”

“Ah know about that.”

“Did you also know that Scott ended the simulation the moment you appeared?”

“What..?”

“He refused to have you as the enemy. Said it went against trying to befriend you.”

“That’s very him. Never gives up on a lost cause.”

“And after you joined up, it became more obvious. You showed us one side of you, the rehabilitated anti-social. When you took from any of us, we all dealt with the same telepath paranoia: do you know now? Do you know our darkest secrets, most disgusting desires? Do you know what we think about you, about anyone?”

“Takes some willpower not to puke mah guts out at all the shit that comes with just a touch.” Rogue said, “There’s just too much shit, even in the supposed ‘best of us’.”

“But you were honest with him.” Jean said, “You were open, you didn’t pretend anything. You could just shout at him for two hours over some random thing and he’d take it in stride, because he’d know that it was your nature.”

“Much as Ah have one left...”

Jean shook her head. “Not my point. He liked it. He enjoyed your company, enjoyed your honesty... and though it actually burns to admit it, he enjoyed it a little more than he probably should have.”

Rogue’s eyes widened. _Is she saying... no. That’s just bizarre._

A sly voice reminded her: _you touched him. You already know this. You know how he feels._

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Jean said, caressing Scott’s cheek, “But I’ve never known him to have a thing for goth girls.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But the fact of the matter isn’t that he was attracted to you. That goes without saying.”

“He can’t be...”

“You were there during the power surge. You heard... no, you _lived_ what he said to me. That he knows me better than anyone else ever did or ever will.”

Rogue nodded. Jean sighed.

“Scott knows me, yes. He has me figured out. But there are parts of me that he will never accept. Some of my choices, some of my inclinations... hell, my ability to control my powers to a reasonable degree... these are things he will never completely deal with. It’s not his fault. It really isn’t. He just can’t. It’s contrary to his nature. But he loves me, despite these things.”

“How do Ah fit into all this?”

“He sees you as you are. He has a knack for that. Everybody assumes that he’s watching them, because they can’t see his eyes. It often makes them act in ways they normally wouldn’t.”

Rogue huffed. “An’ when they do that, he sees what they’re tryna hide, what they’re really like. Just shows him how dishonest they can be.”

Jean nodded. “And like that, he sees you. Not because you hide, but because you let him see. He knows you almost as well as he knows me, if not better... and he accepts you, all of you.”

Rogue honestly didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve never doubted that he loved me.” Jean said, smiling softly while caressing his cheek with the back of her fingers, “Perks of being a telepath, I suppose... but I also never doubted that he loved you... maybe even more than even he himself knows.”

“Ah just-”

“Okay, seriously? I wish you could’ve had this conversation a few months ago.” Kitty’s voice came. She was standing in the doorway with a tray holding three styrofoam cups.

“How long have you been there?” Jean asked.

“I was by the door right around the simulation bit.” Kitty said, “The coffee got a little cold, though. Hey, Rogue.”

“Hello.”

“Missed you. Miss you.”

“Ah know. Ah missed-”

“Why don’t you bring Kurt, too?” Jean asked.

“I’m dying to find out how much more of that conversation you can squeeze in.” Kitty said with a wide grin, “But, sure, I’m game. Ready? Go!”

Kitty turned and slowly exited the room. Rogue and Jean found themselves staring at each other, minds racing, trying to find out what they could say. They ended up not saying anything, just meekly smiling at one another, knowing that they had reached an understanding. 

* * *

With a resounding _BAMF,_ Kurt and Kitty appeared in the room, bringing with them the smell of sulfur. Kurt took a look at Jean and Rogue, and smiled.

“So I guess it didn’t come to cat claws.” he said.

“Cat claws?” Kitty asked.

“Catfight?” Kurt suggested.

Rogue couldn’t help but laugh a little. It sounded so wrong to her ears, so off-key and ugly a sound.

“So, what now?” Kitty asked.

Jean shrugged.

“I think we should wait for the professor to contact us.” She said, “Or for Scott to wake up.”

* * *

They passed the time by entertaining Rogue with stories she had missed, daily mishaps and antics that she had once been surrounded by. The vacation of the Brotherhood house – Lance’s last stand against a determined Kitty right on the doorstep. He had, Kitty said, put up a good fight, but it hadn’t taken much to convince him to come to the mansion and even then, his condition had been that he wouldn’t wear one of those uniforms. He wouldn’t be an X-Man.

Kurt, for his part, was still with Amanda, but trying to keep it going behind her parent’s backs was a chore. He told Rogue of a few close calls he had had. Every time that had happened, he had ported blindly just to avoid getting caught. One time, he said, he had ported straight onto the garbage can right in front of her house; and the second port had taken him into the living room of the house right across the street.

Jean, bringing the mood to a more somber point, told her about the Professor’s rage at what had happened. Not just his life’s work disappearing, but Scott just flat out leaving the Institute without a second thought. He had spent the rest of that night shouting at Dr. McCoy, and afterwards, had disappeared completely. He had been absent for days, all of which he had spent in his room, frantically trying to reconstruct the Xavier Files database from his hand-written notes, audio recordings and his memory. When it was over, he had drilled them all relentlessly, constantly citing the fact that they were down two X-Men (three, if you counted Logan, who had gone AWOL), one of which was the team leader. Bobby had tried out for Scott’s position, of course, but it was a done deal: naturally, the spot had been filled up by Jean. Of course, Jean added, Emma Frost had kept him posted throughout all this, along with snide remarks about how Scott didn't intend to return, ever.

Rogue sat there, listening, reacting every once in a while, but otherwise simply taking it all in. It helped, hearing about it all: her life in the Mansion belonged to a fair amount of echoes, too, but they were, mercifully, generous in letting her feel that this was where she had been. This had been the Rogue’s life before that nagging urge to go down to the lower levels, before the instinctive rush towards the Xavier Files. Part of her missed it. Part of her despised the very idea. Parts of her couldn’t think of anywhere else to belong; and other parts, well, they belonged everywhere else.

And all of the others, not known for their polite silence, had their own opinions, as well. 

* * *

In the middle of a mellow discussion regarding the constantly-juggled Registration Act, the Professor’s telepathic message entered their minds, fading in through a sudden surge of low, white noise.

_Everyone, may I please have your attention?_

The conversation stopped in an instant.

_I didn’t want it to come to this, but Ms. Frost and I have agreed to a solution. I need you all to come to the top floor of the library tower._

“Ugh...”

All the attention in the room turned to Scott. He was trying to sit up, failing miserably and trying to tolerate his creeping nausea long enough to actually speak.

“Kurt, you stay with him.” Jean said.

“Vhy me!?”

“Because you can get there the fastest if need be.” Jean said.

“Okay.” Kurt said, “See ya.”

Jean left, followed by Rogue and Kitty. Kurt leapt to the railing on the side of Squall’s bed and perched there, his tail swishing back and forth lazily as Scott tried to come to his senses. He opened his mouth to speak, choked, swallowed hard and said:

“Rogue..?”

“I am not that pretty, meine freund.” Kurt said, smiling.

Scott caught the scent of perfume, thinning, lingering. It immediately triggered his memory and flashed a thousand stray images in a split second.

“Was Jean here..?”

“And Kitty.” Kurt said, “You just missed them.”


	6. Format C: For Cortex

Rogue rode shotgun and directed Jean’s navy blue SUV through the streets of Chicago. She had the path from the General Hospital to the Academy of Tomorrow practically memorized. She had been there several times, sometimes with Scott and sometimes without. The way back, she could recognize through several pointers scattered around the road.

After showing the security at the campus entrance her ID and assuring them that the people in the car were in no way terrorists, vandals, PETA protestors or the like, Rogue guided them through the campus and to the parking lot behind the library tower. They pulled up into an empty slot and got out. The lot was at a lower level than the building itself and though there was a door that led into it, they chose instead to walk up the small incline of grass that ended in the main walk.

There was moisture in the air, thick and pungent.

It’s going to rain soon.

_Thought you liked storms, Ororo?_

I do. You don’t.

_I... don’t?_

You were always afraid of the heavy rain. You don’t know that?

_I don’t._

“Rogue?”

Jean’s voice, somehow concerned.

“Sorry.” Rogue murmured and took point.

* * *

The three of them emerged from the elevator shaft and found Emma Frost and Charles waiting in the therapy area, sharing a cup of tea. Jean and Kitty took a few moments to absorb the large, seemingly cooled down but still rich confines of the office. Rogue shuffled her feet nervously. From the way they had put down their cups and the way Emma Frost had immediately stood up, she knew that she wasn’t going to like it.

“Here we are.” Jean said.

“Yeah. So, what’s this about a solution?” Kitty asked.

“Can you help me..?” Rogue asked, meekly, fully aware of the fact that one of the people she was asking this of had no reason whatsoever to do so.

“There is a way.” Emma Frost said, “But it’s not something as light as taking a pill.”

“What do Ah have to do?”

“You have to consent to it.” Charles said.

“We can erase the echoes. Completely.” Emma Frost assured.

Rogue’s eyes grew wide. When she spoke, her voice was trembling. “You can? Ya mean, you can end this? You can set me free?”

“Yes.” Charles said, “We can. But there is one catch.”

“And that is?” Kitty asked.

“We will need to gain complete access.” Emma Frost said, “I will repeat that: _complete_ access.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Jean asked.

“Exactly what it says.” Charles replied, “There will be nothing hidden from us, nothing at all. That isn’t to say your thoughts or desires will be exposed, that goes without saying.”

“Oh, stop being so prim and proper about it.” Emma Frost, “He means to say we will strip you bare, right down to your very soul. Your baser instincts, your worst inclinations, your everything, _you yourself_ will be bared to us. This isn’t about finding out what it is that you think about when you masturbate. This will not be an invasion of privacy. This will be an invasion of your self.”

Silence fell. Kitty, Kurt and Jean exchanged nervous glances, while Rogue twiddled her thumbs and considered it.

“...do Ah have a choice?” she asked after a few moments of hesitation.

“Realistically?” Emma Frost asked. Rogue reluctantly nodded, “Not really, no. If you continue the way it is, soon, either an echo will completely overcome the rest and override your psyche, or you will become an amalgamation of the echoes. From what Charles tells me, it’ll most likely be the former; from my observations, I can say it can go either way. In any case, however little self you may have now will be erased completely and permanently. You will then spend the rest of your life with the firm delusion that you are someone -or someones- that you’re not.”

Emma Frost let it all sink in.

“When can we do it?” Rogue asked.

“Right now, actually.” Emma Frost said. She gestured towards the couch she had used during their sessions. Rogue hesitantly went over and laid down. Charles rolled up his wheelchair around the couch and positioned himself right by Rogue’s head. Rogue looked up into his eyes and saw nothing but determination.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Emma Frost said.

Rogue turned to see her take off her pure white heels. She raised an eyebrow and her sentiment echoed in the others assembled.

“Christian made this pair especially for me, as a gift.” She said, “If anything goes wrong, I don’t want any harm to come to his generosity... they are, after all, one-of-a-kind.”

Charles rolled his eyes. 

* * *

Emma Frost knelt down next to the couch while Charles kept his position. They both told Rogue to relax, to take deep breaths and to close her eyes. Everything would be alright soon.

Rogue complied. She tried to relax, tried to still that panicky voice in her head constantly telling her that this would all end in disaster, it would all end in catastrophe, when had things ever gone her way anyway and why should this be any different?

“Rogue, this won’t end that way.” Charles said, “I assure you.”

Hadn’t he said similar things before? Hadn’t he told her that she could trust him, that she’d be safe with him? Hadn’t he told her all that and so much more?

“You’ll be safe.” Emma Frost said.

Coming from her, it meant fuck-all. Rogue remembered the words, but she always remembered them through the mouth of someone she trusted, someone she loved, someone she hurt and deceived and stole from and fucked over.

Having no choice in the matter, Rogue kept her eyes closed and tried to settle into the hands of two individuals she found she wouldn’t trust with herself. Not in that moment.

* * *

Upon Jean’s suggestion, she and Kitty moved back and closer to Emma Frost’s desk. Proximity, Jean told Kitty, was an issue in almost all telepathic endeavors. The closer they were, the more chances of something from them rubbing off on the process. They sat on the desk, side-by-side. Jean held Kitty’s hand to establish a connection, so that they could converse telepathically, neither wanting to provide the Professor and Emma Frost with external, erratic stimuli.

They didn’t say much. Mostly, they simply tried to keep their tension under control.

* * *

Charles felt Emma Frost’s presence, pure white and glistening, beside him as they reached into Rogue’s mind together. The conscious parts were noisy, but easy to navigate: she was barely keeping her panic under control. Flashes of her worries, her anxieties and future projections distracted them only momentarily. They were both used to this reaction. Telepath-paranoia, despite the fact that she had explicitly been told that they would be seeing everything inside of her mind. Charles could feel Emma Frost’s mild amusement vibrating as they went through the upper layers.

Charles focused and joined Emma Frost in digging deeper. Together, they penetrated Rogue’s being, layer by layer by layer, breaching through each one with increasing difficulty. Her unconscious mind was a snake pit, full of twisted desires, sickening inclinations and the usual, nauseating surge of filth that dwelled underneath the perception of any human being.

Emma Frost and Charles approached the final layer, the subconscious. They paused for a moment, as if to gather their strength, and then, got to work. The subconscious was the thickest layer, guarded by rabid, raw surges of emotion and absolute thoughts, both of them threatening to overwhelm simply by existing. Impossible concepts, paradoxical suggestions, maddening contradictions, blinding darkness... Charles and Emma Frost, as one, pressed on, wading through the sheer intensity that was the shell of Rogue’s subconscious.

What they would find neither could have imagined.

* * *

A mass of flesh underneath her, writhing, pulsating. Sweating bodies glistening in the pitch-black, sliding against one another, scattering moans and squeals of delight into the air. Whispers, murmurs, shouts, merging into one noise.

Legs, arms, heads, tongues, hands and feet, chests and buttocks merging, separating, pushing forward, pulling back.

Hands. Hands holding her feet, hands around her ankles, arms intertwined with her legs. Two fingers in her mouth, two different hands on her neck, three pulling her hair, one holding her nose, another caressing her shoulder, two, three gripping her breasts, four fiddling with her stomach, one buried into her crotch, moving. Hands around her arms, fingers intertwined with hers, palms exploring every single inch of her flesh, a finger tapping on her eyes... touching, pulling, wanting, touching, touching...

“Let me go...” she pleaded, her tongue moving around the fingers, sliding across them, saliva cascading off of her open mouth and onto the fingertips pulling at her lips, “Please... let me go...”

But they were still there. New hands were reaching from the lower parts of the pile, clawing their way across and finding an exposed spot. Sometimes, they slapped present ones away, like right now – two hands pushed away the ones holding her neck and immediately latched onto the empty spot and pulled.

“Let me go...” she whimpered, her eyes filling with tears, “Let me...” the fingers in her mouth caught her tongue, and a thumb pressed against her chin. She tried to jerk her head free, tried to kick and punch... they wouldn’t let her go. They wouldn’t let her go, they would never let her go, there was too many of them and one of her – one against the many that now made her.

They _were_ her now.

She, herself, was bound to be their slave, at their mercy.

A hand grasped one beast and squeezed. Her entire body sprang, trying to get free, but the hands held her fast... she couldn’t even say anything...

A booming voice that interrupted the hell that was the totality of them.

“_ROGUE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”_

Yes! Yes, she could! She could! She tried to move her jaw, but it was being held in place. She screamed into the fingers exploring her teeth and prayed that the voice would hear her.

_“ROGUE? ARE YOU THERE?”_

No! No! Please, no! Please, hear me, please... please...

The bodies around her pulsed, once, twice, and third – they expanded from the bottom and they slowly released her. Planting both feet on God knew who, Rogue looked at the stream of flesh rising up in an arc. Pietro, Toad, Taryn, Sam, Piotr, Remy, Stacy, Erik...

Scott was standing there, close by but still distant, standing apart from the smothering echoes.

“Scott!”

Rogue extended her hand, fingers grasping. The rest of the echoes stopped. Suspended in the pitch-black and made of silence, they stopped and looked at her.

“Scott, please...” Rogue said, “Ah’m sorry... Ah’m so sorry... please... Ah’ll do anythin, just...”

Moment of silence.

Scott extended both arms and came shooting towards her – as he did, the rest of the bodies followed him towards her. Rogue screamed and held up her arms to shield herself...

Scott’s arms found her and his body shielded her a moment before every body in the pile took her off her feet and swallowed her whole.

Rogue screamed. 

* * *

The psychic shockwave sent Emma Frost, Jean and Charles screaming in pain and hit Kitty with an indescribable, dense rush of emotion that brought her to her knees. As Kitty fell onto the carpet, the panoramic window behind her exploded. All balance left Kitty and she found herself rolling on the ground, next to a writhing and screaming Jean, trying to find her bearings. 

* * *

Rogue jerked awake and, throwing her legs up, spun around and fell off the couch. The mellow texture of the Persian rug scraped her skin and she tried to rise to her knees, at least to her knees.

In her head, there was a swirling mess of white noise, circling around her conscious mind. Thoughts and impulses rapid-firing, urges dancing to a machine gun beat. Her heart was racing, her pulse spiraling out of control, her hands were shaking.

_Stop..._

A thousand protestations, a million lies. Hundreds of affirmations, a trillion cries.

Rogue stumbled to her feet. She couldn’t balance the world. It was all happening too fast, because it was so slow she couldn’t breathe enough to feed her lungs; she was suffocating because the world was moving by so fast that it all felt like a time-lapse video.

Pressure was building inside her skull, like a tumor rapidly growing, spreading across her brain, pushing against the bone. She blindly stumbled across the office, clumsily zig-zagging towards Emma Frost’s mahogany desk as the thing inside her grew and grew and grew...

She knew what was coming. She had felt this once before, only it hadn't been nearly as bad as this back then. It had been mellower and she still remembered what had happened, what she had done.

She leaned on the desk, cold palms pressing on the smooth surface.

At her feet, Jean and Kitty were writhing, trying to steady themselves.

_I can’t do it again... I won’t do it again... I can’t..._

Cold wind blew into the office, making her aware that there wasn’t a window ahead of her anymore. The whole world came to a split-second pause and her one thought, absolute, calmly bubbled to the surface.

_This is it. This is the end._

_No more Rogue._

Moaning in pain, barely seeing straight, Rogue dragged herself around the desk and to the edge of the room, to the opening that used to be a window. The closer she got, the better she could see the fall.

_I have to be strong now. I have to be strong and do this. End this._

Mustering up all her strength, Rogue stumbled forward, dragging her feet. Edging closer.

Inside her head, they were all screaming.

“Rogue...”

Kitty’s voice.

_I always knew it would end like this._

She stood at the very edge, looking down. It was raining now, thin droplets showering those below. She caught a glimpse of a sea of glass shards on the ground, glistening.

“Rogue!”

_It’s the kind of end trash like me deserve._

Kitty was almost standing now, almost up to Rogue, so close that she could almost touch her friend...

Rogue leaned forward and let her body carry her down.


	7. Nothing to No One

Kitty leapt out after Rogue, lagging only half a second behind. Her hands reached out to grab her, to phase them both into the ground.

A loud _BAMF_ and Rogue was gone. Kitty saw the ground rising and closed her eyes. She phased right into it.

Rogue re-emerged in the middle of the road, ten feet above the ground. She fell down hard, and remained on the ground, writhing.

In her head was only noise. Endless noise. A mountain of snakes filling her skull, their venom pooling inside it, pouring out of her nostrils in the form of crimson droplets... scaled skin, sexy, slithering, writhing, hissing, whispering, murmuring, shouting, speaking, begging, pleading, laughing, crying, whimpering, moaning, desperate, joyful, mellow, turned on, intimate, repulsed, love, lust, hate, anger, pity, sorrow, melancholy, fire, ice, magma, light, fireworks, claws, tail, blue, black, white, red, soil, storm, rain, water...

Rogue groaned through clenched teeth as she doubled over, her forehead scraping the pavement.

Too much. Too much. Too much.

_“Stop!”_ she cried out.

She could only make the word out from her own screaming. She was kicking, trying to find purchase, but her shoes were sliding on the wet asphalt. Both hands pressed on her head, she could feel her throat slowly pushing beyond sore as she screamed.

Blood was trickling down her nose in steady droplets, defying the chaos overwhelming her.

_“Stop it!”_

Pain told her that she had spared a hand to pound on the ground. Her hand was swollen, every blow was sending small shockwaves through her arm. But it was nothing, it was nothing at all, because she was raw power, who the fuck did you think she was? She was the motherfucking Juggernaut, bi-

_“I said stop!!!”_

Rogue’s fist pounded into the road and shook the ground around it. Cracks emerged in the asphalt, fault lines bleeding out of the contact point.

For a fleeting, cruel second, the echoes were completely silent. For a moment, she was no one.

The moment passed and the noise returned at full-force, making her scream out. She managed to struggle to her feet, barely able to keep her balance, barely able to perceive anything.

“Rogue!”

Voice. Meaningless. Familiar. There was another voice, the same one, inside, saying something different. Saying, you need to lighten up. You need to let me take control. Let me drive. Let me be the Rogue. Let me be. Let me let me let me

“Rogue! Hey!”

Rogue clenched her fists.

* * *

Emma Frost rubbed her temples. She didn’t have to look to see that her white suit was ruined by the blood dripping from her nose. It felt like her skull was being split open from the inside. Shrugging it off, she closed her eyes and pressed two fingers on her temples to concentrate enough to send a message.

_This is Headmaster Frost, calling all Hellions. You are needed. We have a rogue mutant on campus. She's extremely dangerous and extremely powerful. Assemble and come to the library tower. Now._

As she ceased her transmission, Emma Frost sighed. She stood up. Charles’ wheelchair had fallen to the side and he was unconscious. She breathed in and slowly, her skin turned into diamond. Congratulating herself for not risking her shoes, she ran to the window and leapt down. The suit was a lost cause, anyway. 

* * *

All Kitty could see was Rogue standing there, still –too still-, as if waiting. She approached cautiously, hands shaking slightly, reaching for her shoulder. Kitty noted that Rogue’s fingers were twitching.

Rogue suddenly clenched her fists and bone claws extended from between her knuckles.

Kitty had barely a second to become intangible before Rogue, letting out a guttural growl, spun around and slashed at her. Kitty backed away, but Rogue didn’t relent – the claws came at her with increasing ferocity. Kitty stopped abruptly and decided to go through Rogue to get away. She lurched forward.

She caught her friend's eyes and all she saw in them was raw insanity.

Kitty went through Rogue and emerged from the other side. She was about to turn when Rogue, screaming out, unleashed a full, blood-red optic blast in her direction. Kitty cringed – the beam was a bit difficult, as she could still feel it piercing through her. She dodged to the side, became tangible in mid-air, rolled, stopped and rushed to her feet. She had a brief second of hope before Rogue, moving impossibly fast, grabbed her by her ponytail and smashed her fist into her face. Kitty felt her nose break with the impact as pain overtook her and blinded her. Tears filled her eyes as Rogue spun and threw her down to the pavement. Kitty became intangible a nanosecond before her head hit the ground – and two nanoseconds before Rogue’s boot crashed into the concrete and buried her up to her knee.

Kitty swam through the dense layers under the asphalt and emerged a little ways away from Rogue. Once she became solid again, she had to press her hand on her nose. Even breathing through it hurt. Rogue was just standing there, holding her head, screaming.

A voice interrupted her agony.

“Alright, little lady, you’re coming with me!”

“Dob’t!” Kitty called out.

The young man leaping at Rogue was wearing a black and yellow uniform, which led Kitty to believe that he was part of a team, like hers. Rogue spun around just as he unleashed a barrage of bright green energy. Rogue held out her hand and the blast dissipated in waves. He landed on his feet, ready to go, but Rogue unleashed a wave of magma towards him. As Kitty sprinted towards them, he screamed, holding up a bright green shield.

Kitty leapt to deliver a kick. Rogue stopped her assault on the Hellion and grabbed Kitty by the ankle mid-air and brought her around. Kitty crashed against the Hellion and they both fell to the ground.

“Rogue!”

Rogue turned to see Emma Frost, standing there. Her skin was glistening and she looked determined to stand her ground. With a shriek, Rogue went cannonball and launched herself towards Emma Frost. Emma Frost side-stepped her and brought down her elbow. The blow connected at her waist, snapped a vertebrae and brought her to the ground. Emma Frost shifted her position and punched Rogue’s back, eliciting a groan and snapping a few ribs. Before she could rewind another blow, Rogue spun and slashed with her bone claws, which tore into the fabric of the suit, but broke upon coming into contact with her bare ankle. Emma Frost raised her foot to stomp on Rogue, but Rogue, with a slickness Emma Frost had rarely seen, flipped herself onto all fours and then leapt up like a frog. She sped up in mid-air and rushed towards Kitty and the recovering Hellion.

A wall of sand, somewhat wet from the rain, gathered in between Rogue and her intended targets, slowing her down. When the sand condensed itself into a form, Rogue was facing a girl in a burka.

“That’s as far as you go.” The girl said.

Rogue growled.

“Sooraya!” Emma Frost called, “Don’t hold back!”

Sooraya slowly became a cloud of particles, hissing in the air, dancing around one another. Rogue, feeling her anxiety and blind rush build up the longer she stood, poised, waiting. A torrent of sand-like particles rushed forward and tore into her. Rogue could feel small grains stripping off pieces of her flesh. The pain from the pricking of the particles was nothing at all to her. Dust in the wind, that was it.

Rogue ignited, parts of exposed flesh stinging and she steadily increased the temperature around her, burning up oxygen until the heat started to melt parts of the road underfoot. Sooraya, around her, crystallized into pieces of glass and shattered on the ground.

Kitty almost shrieked when she saw Rogue’s mangled body started to patch the wounds up at an incredible pace. In a few seconds, Rogue, standing there in her tattered clothes, snarling.

“You’ll pay for that!”

Rogue turned to face a rock giant – wearing a comically undersized black and yellow jumpsuit. The lumbering figure came swinging. Rogue dodged with ease and backed up a few paces. She closed her eyes and held her hands out before her.

A blast of green energy distracted her. Rogue retreated and that was when Rockslide’s stone fist connected with her jaw. She felt it break. It registered somewhere in the back rows of her awareness only a minor nuisance to the healing factor, but the impact knocked her off her feet. She let the momentum carry her before phasing into the ground and disappeared.

“Where’d she go?” Rockslide asked, looking around, “Yo! Hellion! Where is she?”

“Jesus Chri- for the last time, man, I’m a tele_kinetic_!” Hellion said, “Not a telepath!”

“Behnd youw!” Kitty slurred, pointing. She broke into a run, desperate to reach them before-

Rogue emerged from the ground behind Rockslide, her fists clenched. A strange rumbling sound began to reverberate through the opening and before Hellion could react, Rockslide exploded into small rocks, which kept exploding and fragmented into pebbles.

“No!”

Hellion’s protest lasted a second before a potent optic blast crushed his nose, dislocated his jaw and knocked him unconscious.

Kitty’s kick managed to connect with the back of Rogue’s head, but she seemed unfazed by it. Rogue turned slowly, causing Kitty’s panic to go through the roof in a split second. Kitty phased into the ground before Rogue could react.

“This is ridiculous...” Emma Frost said to herself as Rogue, once again overwhelmed, moaned and stumbled blindly onto the road. The lamp posts around her curled into spirals, their lamps shattered. The wind picked up speed and the clouds overhead started to grow thicker. The rain was coming down in large droplets now, soaking those below.

The rumbling of thunder above. Rogue’s body was switching between burning hot and freezing cold, shifting the air around her and turning raindrops into steam and ice.

Emma Frost broke into a run, preparing to body slam Rogue. While physical subjugation wasn’t the best option, letting her run rampant wasn’t acceptable either.

A telepathic take-down was impossible, Emma Frost noted a second before her punch landed on top of Rogue's head and disrupted her balance. Emma Frost didn’t relent. She came at Rogue, usually aiming for her head, with crosses, left, right, right, right, left, right, an uppercut, a kick to the stomach, grab her by the hair, knee to the teeth, again, again, again, until she was convinced that she was bordering on brain damage, she wouldn’t stop.

A hand grabbed hold of her shirt.

“Stob!” Kitty said, “Yoo’re killinbg her!”

Rogue, her hair still in Emma Frost’s hand, reached for her right hand. She gripped tightly, twisted and pulled the skin clean off, revealing dense rock underneath it. A second later, her now-rock hand was covered with small plates of organic metal. Rogue delivered an uppercut to Emma Frost, causing her to stumble back, which she used to touch her right hand and energize it. Before any of them could react, Rogue threw a punch and got her opponent straight in the face.

Her hand detonated with a dull, muffled explosion. Emma Frost’s face shattered and diamonds of various shapes and sizes scattered all over. Her body shook and then she slumped to the ground like a rag doll.

Rogue pulled back a stump. Her hand was gone.

* * *

Voices. Voices. Voices. They weren’t satisfied, they were never satisfied, they wanted more. They needed more. More. More. More. More. More! More! MORE!

Let me drive let me be you let me be the one let me be let me be let me let me memememememememememememe

Rogue fell to her knees, cradling her head as her healing factor rebuilt her right hand from scratch.

The ground started to shake as chains of lightning crashed, tearing into cars, into soil, lighting up trees. The pavement cracked and split as bony spikes protruded from Rogue's body and flew in every direction. Kitty was caught by surprise and one of the spikes impaled her through her forearm. She screamed and went down to avoid any more projectiles.

She drew her knees to her chest and did the one thing she could do in that moment. She prayed.

Before she was even done, her prayers were answered with a mercifully familiar _BAMF._

* * *

Rogue’s tail swished back and forth, curled in on itself. Her hands energized her fingernails and they detonated in their beds, one by one, shredding her fingertips apart and making her scream. Agony tore into her eyes as wild winds started to drag along anything that wasn’t nailed down and Rogue unleashed a wave of red energy from her eyes, as fireworks went off inside her palms.

“Tick tick tick...” she heard herself say.

A ball of light exploded in her hand, tore apart the flesh and sent off chunks of charred bone. Her lower leg to phase through the ground and get stuck there. Pieces of debris started to orbit around her in a halo, moved by excess telekinetic energy. The cars around the area were crushed into themselves as snow, rain and hail descended from above.

Her fingers froze before burning up and discharging pure electricity. Rogue swallowed and a green, elongated tongue emerged from between her teeth to crack on the concrete, slobbering, whipping from side to side with increasing speed.

She bit down and severed it. The tongue fell and laid there, twitching.

Rogue’s skin turned a shade of blue, before returning to its natural pallor.

Too much. Too much to contain, too much to absorb. She screamed. Again. Again. With her, the others screamed, the others shouted their defiance of her will, her self.

Give me control give me substance give me something give me your body give me give me give me

“Rogue!”

Standstill.

Rogue turned around, her claws constantly extending and retracting, her tail appearing and disappearing, the debris around her circling precariously, her breath freezing the air around it.

Through the chaos, a point of clarity.

There he was.

* * *

Scott was standing a few feet away from her, clad in the uniform she knew and thought fit him extremely well.

His presence brought the echoes’ voices to a grinding halt.

“It’s me.” He said.

The echoes started to whisper.

“Get away from me!” she could manage.

“No.”

The echoes were murmuring.

“Ah’ll hurt you!”

“You won’t.”

Scott started to walk towards her.

* * *

Jean, with Professor X at her side, arrived at the mangled mess of the sidewalk just in time to see Scott taking a step towards Rogue. Jean took a step forward herself, but Charles’ hand grabbed her arm.

“No, Jean.” Charles said, “Let him go.”

Jean wondered if she could.

* * *

Seeing him coming closer, Rogue tried to back away. The echoes assaulted her with endless noise, bearing down on her with all their strength, vying for control.

“Ah can’t control it, Ah can’t control it!” Rogue screamed, “Too many too many too- _there’s too many of them!”_

Scott began to walk towards her.

“No!” she took two clumsy steps back, “Don’t!”

“It’s okay!” he said.

“Please...” she whimpered. Her voice was quivering.

“It’s okay.” he said, still continuing to advance, “It’s alright. You’re not going to hurt me.”

“Why do you keep _saying_ that!?” Rogue shrieked, her voice cracking.

Scott didn’t respond. He kept walking.

“Ah wrecked everythin for you - Ah took everythin from you and gave _nothin_ back!” she shouted, “And Ah’m _this_ and they’re talkin ta me and they’ll take me and Ah’ll be nothin, Ah’ll be nobody! Ya hear me, Summers? Ah’m _nobody!_”

“No.” he was at arm’s reach.

Her claws extended and she lashed out. She tore into his cheek, spilled his blood.

Scott clenched his teeth and bore it. He was still for a second. Then, his entire body jerked, ready to move forward.

“Ah’m a piece of _shit!_” Rogue shouted as her claws retracted on their own, “Ah ain’t worth this! Ah ain't worth any of this!"

Rogue kicked Scott in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He stood his ground, coughing, shaken, but intent.

"Ah ain’t worth _anything!_” Rogue screamed, "Ah'm fucking worthless!"

Scott’s arms reached out for her. The echoes were screaming.

“Ah’ll just disappear! Just leave, let ‘em take me! It’ll be like Ah never even existed, Ah promise, Ah promise!” she shouted, pounding on his chest with weak fists, pushing and pulling him, shaking where she stood. "Just let me go!"

“I can’t do that, Rogue. I won’t.”

“Why!?” she choked, the echoes subsiding, “Why’re you still here? Why are you with me!? Why won’t you just run away!?”

“Rogue...”

Rogue growled through clenched teeth, frantic. Her hands were grabbing his uniform, pushing him away and pulling him closer. She was shaking from head to toe. Her teeth were chattering.

“Ah fucked you over all this time and you’re still here!” she said, “Why are you here, why won’t you let go? _Why are you holdin on to me!?”_

Scott’s gloved hands reached up and cupped her cheeks. It stilled her somewhat, made her pause. She went all rigid as she saw tiny suns in the slit of the visor, looking into her eyes, seeing her soul.

“Because I love you.” He said.

He leaned in and gently kissed her, sending a torrent of thoughts and emotions into her. She shivered from head to toe as he held her there. She squirmed and as he withdrew, she choked. He was coursing through her now, and she found that he had nothing but love for her.

Rogue sobbed and, screaming out, broke down. Scott wrapped his arms around her then and pulled her closer as she grabbed handfuls of his uniform and cried, sobbing and choking. Her knees buckled and Scott caught her. He carried her down gently.

“Shhh...” he whispered, one hand running through her hair, “Shhh, it’s okay...”

* * *

Jean, standing on the sidewalk, watched as Rogue wept. Scott, her Scott, was holding her close, gently rocking her back and forth. Through the hissing of the rain, Jean could hear him.

“I’ve got you...” he was saying, “It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you...”


	8. The Grandest Accusation

After her tears ran dry, Rogue's consciousness slipped and she went limp in Scott’s arms. Taking his cue, Charles moved his wheelchair towards them. Once by their side, he reached into his jacket’s side pocket to retrieve a small, circular object. He reached down and placed it onto Rogue’s forehead. A small clink and the device clung to her skin. Its center started to blink red.

“What’s that?” Scott asked, “The fuck did you just do!?”

“It’s a neuro-suppressor that Hank was kind enough to reverse engineer from the ones X23 left behind. Without the explosive charge, of course. And before you ask, Scott, yes, there is one for every one of us, including myself, at the Institute. Kept under lock and key, for what it's worth.”

Scott clenched his teeth to keep himself from talking.

“But for now, we must get out of the Academy.” Charles said.

“Why? So we can go back to being your guinea pigs?”

“This is hardly the time, Scott.” Charles said, “We’re not safe here. Emma Frost can recover any second-“

Scott cast a glance in her direction and chuckled. “I doubt that.”

“We need to go.”

“Tell me why and I’ll come. Hell, you can strap me to a table and vivisect me for all I care.”

Charles sighed. Temper, temper. “Emma Frost is responsible for what just transpired, for reasons that would take too much time to explain right here, which is time we do not have.”

Kitty, still holding her nose and the sleeves of her pink sweater stained with blood, came over, followed closely by Kurt, whose tail was swishing back and forth nervously.

“Kitty!” Kurt gasped, seeing the spike running through her forearm, “What... are you okay?”

“Dvv I lvvk ovky!?”

“I can take care of that.” Kurt said, pointing at the spike.

“Hvv?”

Kurt wrapped his fingers around the spike. He closed his eyes and ported, taking it with him. Kitty screamed into her sweater’s sleeve. When Kurt returned, he saw that she was bleeding steadily. Kitty held her arm up and close to her chest. Kurt put one arm around her and held her close.

Jean was the last to join them, dragging her feet and eye-contacting the ground. She was silent.

“Kurt, would it be possible for you to teleport us all?” Charles asked.

Kurt scratched his head. “Maybe, I’ve never tried it with this many people before.”

“Well, try.” Scott said, “Get us outta here.”

“Alright, everybody, hold on!” Kurt said, turning around and presenting his tail.

Scott kept one arm wrapped around Rogue and grabbed the tail. The others reached out and got a hold of it also. Kurt took a few deep breaths, clenched his teeth, and _BAMF._

* * *

It took three consecutive ‘ports to get them to the helipad by the basketball court. One of the X-Jets was waiting for them... one of the X-Jets and a motorcycle parked right in front of it. There was a burly man in a cowboy hat leaning against it, smoking a cigar.

“Logan..?” Scott could manage.

“Hey there, Slim.” Logan’s eyes drifted to the unconscious Rogue, held up only by Scott’s support, “Ah, hell. Everything went ta shit while I was gone, didn’t it?”

“Nnn a hnnd bskt.” Kitty managed.

“How did you find us?” Charles asked.

“I was comin’ ta check up on these two,” Logan said, cocking his head towards Scott and Rogue, “On the way, I saw the storm. Figgered it’d be nothing good. When I got to the campus, it was gone. I picked up the scent of the jet and thought I’d wait here. Somebody was gonna come back for this thing sometime.”

“Can we go nov?” Kurt asked.

“After you.” Logan said.

* * *

Charles and Kurt went in first and immediately moved to the cockpit to begin warming up the jet. Kitty stumbled in, followed by Scott, who was dragging along an unconscious Rogue. Logan and his motorcycle got in last. The side hatch closed behind Logan and the sound of the engines spooling up filled the interior of the jet. Before long, they were rising into the air. Charles waited until the jet rotated to find its course and when they started to fly out, he gave Kurt the controls.

One thing he knew going back into the passenger section was that this wasn’t going to be easy.

He found Logan bandaging up Kitty’s arm, unable to do anything about her nose. Charles saw that her nose would need some work done to resemble what it used to be like. A little ways from them, Jean was sitting, looking out the window. Charles sensed that she just wanted to be left to her thoughts, so he passed her by.

In the far back, Scott was cradling Rogue in his arms. Upon seeing Charles approach, his head darted up. For a second, Charles could swear that he could see his visors pulse with red.

“Talk.” Scott said.

Charles clasped his hands together on his lap. “Scott, please, be civil. This is not my fault.”

“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for your experiments.” Scott said, “None of it. So, no. It _is_ your fault.”

“In a larger sense, perhaps it is.” Charles said, “But the shortcomings of my conduct notwithstanding, the current situation isn’t my doing.”

“You said it was Emma Frost's.”

“I shoulda known...” Logan said, “Got a bit blindsided.”

“What?” Scott asked, glancing at him.

“I got you on the track, remember? Got you face time with her?”

“What has that got to do with anything?” Scott asked.

Logan shrugged. “Well, she had this... reputation. That she’d never do nothin’, unless she got something out of it. But I figured that was just green-eyed beasts flappin’ jaws. I'd done her a few favors here and again, so I figgered she'd do me a solid for those.”

“Ah.” Charles said, “But of course. Adamantium can easily cut through diamond and your mind is inaccessible to all but the most focused telepathy. She wouldn’t dare. Or so you thought.”

“’suppose that’s true.”

“What did Emma Frost get out of admitting me and Rogue?” Scott asked.

“Access to Rogue.” Charles said, “Which brings me to something that at first will appear entirely unrelated.”

"I'm listening." Scott said.

"Me too." Logan added, crossing arms, "This oughta be good."

“Nobody but myself is supposed to know about this, but I had an identical twin sister.” Charles said.

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Had, Chuck?"

Charles nodded. "In the womb. I would not remember, had I not been born a telepath. I shared my mother's womb with another entity, identical to me in every respect but her sex... well, that, and her inclinations.”

Kurt's ears perked up. What?

Charles continued. “She whispered to our mother that she would have a daughter, that she would love her daughter more than her useless son. Whispering to her mind, vying for her favor. Can you imagine how cruel that is? A mother loves her children equally and for one of them try and twist her will to...” Charles sighed, “Cassandra was..."

"Cassandra?" Scott asked.

"Cassandra Nova was the name she chose for herself." Charles waited. No response. "As I was saying, she was malevolent. Through my connection with her, I could sense her diabolical thoughts. I couldn’t do something as vile as killing her, so I did what I thought was necessary to contain her – I absorbed her into myself and made myself a singular child, born from twins.”

Scott didn’t know if he should be disgusted or just curious.

Charles sighed, bitter, “I thought that Cassandra’s existence had ended then. I was wrong. In fact, she had remained in my mind, festering, nurturing my worst thoughts, my pitfalls. I have recently become aware that some of my actions, though stemming from my own choices, may not have always been my own.”

“What does that have to do with any of this?” Scott asked.

“Do you remember the night when Rogue found the Xavier Files?”

“I’ll never forget.”

“Not the point. Didn’t you ever wonder how she knew where they were, let alone how to access them?”

“Wasn’t there a passcode or somethin’?” Logan asked.

“Known only to myself, yes.” Charles replied.

“Maybe one of the times she touched you-“ Scott began.

“Even if she had, why that particular secret, specifically? Why not the neuro-suppressors? My political connections? Any of my private projects?”

Scott took a deep breath. “So you’re saying that it was Cassandra Nova who did this?”

“There is more to this than any of us know.” Charles said, “Just now, in her office Emma Frost began the process with me, and reached into Rogue’s mind. But after we gained access to her subconscious, she broke the connection and reached into _my_ mind, searching, frantically, for something. I lost control. I severed the connection, but that was after we had allowed the echoes to bubble to the surface... I cannot be absolutely certain, of course, but if I were to guess, I would say Emma Frost was looking for Cassandra.”

“What would she do with _her?_” Scott asked, cocking his head towards Rogue.

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

Scott took a moment. As his mind worked it into his conscious thoughts, a question emerged. Charles turned his wheelchair around to return to the cockpit, but was stopped by Scott asking the question:

“What about the dreams?”

Charles stopped abruptly. He turned, facing Scott once more.

“Dreams?” he asked.

“Yeah, the recurring dreams everybody and their mother’s been having.” Scott said, “You know, the same stupid dream where everyone just sits down and has a nice conversation about mutations, powers, everything else under the sun?”

“Oh, those.” Charles said, rubbing his temples, “Yes, I am responsible for those.”

“Was there any point at which you thought fucking with our heads might have been a bad idea, or just so incredibly immoral? Or was it always that you being a telepath gave you the right?”

“Kid’s got a point, Chuck.” Logan said, “His choice of words is fuckin’ terrible, but he’s got a point.”

“I vuddn’t shay thaht.” Kitty said, “Maybhe he hnhas a ghnnd ennxplanatnn?”

“Well?” Logan said, glaring at Charles.

“The dreams are a psychodrama.” Charles said, “They are for your benefit.”

“And how’s that?” Logan asked.

“The people appearing the opposite of the dreamer are avatars. By design, these avatars are people that the dreamer trusts, loves and cares for. The intent of this is for the dreamers to make an attempt at coming to terms with their mutation. I found that even the most well-adjusted mutants are somewhat at odds with what they are, so I simply implanted the suggestion that maybe it should be discussed at a subconscious level.”

“So they’re sort of an... unconscious crash-course as to how we can suck it up and deal with it.” Scott said.

“Scott, I understand your animosity, and I understand your reasons for it, but you shouldn’t ask questions only to take issue with the answers, regardless of what they are.”

“Look at Rogue.” Scott snarled “Just look. This is what you allowed to happen. This is what you did with your spare time, this is your scientific endeavor. The culmination of your efforts is right here, professor.”

“I will help her however I can.” Charles said.

“I’m only agreeing with this because there is nobody else. I don’t trust you. I don’t think I ever will, again.”

“I will just have to earn your trust, then.” Charles said.

Logan chuckled. In the end, he himself had kept coming back because Charlie Xavier had a tendency to off on one or four every once in a while but he never weaseled out when cornered. Whatever it was, was whatever it was and that was that.

His smile faded when Rogue turned slightly and let out a soft murmur. He didn’t know if the others had heard, but he had.

_"Let go..."_

* * *

Logan went to his motorcycle and found his knapsack. He dug into it, sifting through what would become laundry once they got back to the mansion and found what he was looking for. He went up to Charles, who was supervising a very adept Nightcrawler at keeping Kitty's arm stable.

“Chuck, been meanin’ to give this to you.”

Charles’ eyes grew wide with surprise. Held in Logan’s hand was a dark grey disk drive, the one Scott had taken out of Cerebro. The Xavier Files.

“This is...”

“Had a little run-in with one of your old college buddies.” Logan said as Charles took the disk, “You’ll remember him. Tall, dark and insane. Goes by the name of Essex.”

Charles’ face contorted into an expression of pure shock. “Essex? _Nathaniel_ Essex?”

“That’s the one. After what went down, I figured, the best place for that there disk is with you.”

“There aren’t words to express how thankful I am for this.”

“Don’t thank me, Charles. I still think what you did, Cassandra Nova or no, was low. It was _low._ If you experiment on your own kind without their consent, how will you say no when the rest of them propose the same thing? You won’t be able to. So, here’s lookin at you, Chuck.”

“I don’t expect you to be unaffected by this.” Charles said.

“Better not. I’ll be stayin’, by the way. As an instructor. The Institute’s the only thing close to a home that I’ve known, and the kids need someone to stare ‘em down at times. Knock ‘em down a few notches.”

Charles couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

Cradling Rogue in his arms, Scott found himself absent-mindedly stroking her hair with latex fingers. She was sleeping - he would even say soundly - but that didn’t keep her lips from moving ever-so slightly, shaping words that, in the oppressive hum of the whooshing air, Scott found hard to hear. But just looking at her limp, defenseless form, he understood once again why he was there.

Two rows to the front, Jean was silently crying.


	9. Am I 1?

Kurt expertly landed the jet into the hangar, next to the impressive, razor-sharp shape of the Blackbird. Logan got out first, dragging his motorcycle along, followed by the Professor, Jean, Kitty and Scott, who was still carrying Rogue. Kurt immediately took hold of Kitty and teleported out of there, hoping to make an accurate leap to the medical wing. Scott raised an eyebrow. Why couldn’t they have done that?

“Apart from apparent exhaustion, there is nothing wrong with her physically.” Charles said, not bothering to pretend he wasn’t reading Scott’s thoughts, “For the procedure, however, I will need Cerebro.”

“Lead the way.” Scott said.

Jean took point along with Charles.

* * *

Cerebro, Scott saw, was now housed in a large room at the very edge of the tactical floor. The room was bare apart from two apparent fixtures: one was the computer itself, taking up almost the entirety of the far wall, more than half of which was devoted to the screen. The console, drawing a semi-circle in the middle of it, also housed the operating helmet.

In the middle of the room was a bed. It was basic, a metal frame containing a pure white mattress, pillow and sheets, but it was encased in thick glass. The dome around the bed was large enough to allow other people besides the patient inside.

Scott walked around the dome until he located a door. He went inside and gently laid Rogue down, taking great care to adjust her body so that it would be in as neutral a position as possible.

He ran a hand down her cheek.

“It’s alright.” He whispered, hoping she’d hear him, “It’ll all be alright. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Rogue’s lips moved, only once. Scott thought he could see what she was saying.

_"Let go."_

* * *

After the Professor retrieved the helmet, he moved his wheelchair into the dome and closed it. Jean took Scott gently by the arm and led him out of the room. The blast doors closed and all that was left to them was the silence.

* * *

In the backyard of that old home, small, with dead grass and dead leaves under her bare feet. Dark skies overhead, with a tint of sickly green and dark brown. The woods, shrouded in the shadows between the crooked, twisted trees, surrounding the house, all of its dark secrets and terrible inhabitants kept back by the rotted fence.

Toys at her feet. Wooden cars. Meant for a boy. They never had a boy, or had they lost him? She didn’t remember. But maybe, they didn’t even belong to her. Belonged to them.

She listened in. The humming silence of the woods went undisturbed. Rogue, confused, tried to get a feel for her environment. Searched for those that she had gotten used to.

Nobody there. Nobody but herself.

Rogue stood up, her toes digging into the dirt. The woods were abandoned now and so was her home. She turned and faced the porch. Two steps up, one step forward and there it would be, the door. Part of her shivered, urging her to back away, that they should look elsewhere.

No. Rogue felt that it was time. She had earned the right. She had given everything. Everything had left her and she was left to herself in this home. Cold and alone.

She got to the door and put one hand on the door handle. She braced herself before pulling it open. A blinding white light issued forth from the threshold and she blindly stumbled forward, squinting in attempt to see.

All she could see was white. 

* * *

Scott shifted uncomfortably. He was nervous, but it wasn’t just that. He was hyperaware of Jean’s proximity, of her mere presence and his mind was intent in splitting his attention between his concern for Rogue and the last proper conversation he had had with Jean. No matter what had happened, he couldn’t deny that he still cared for her, more than he’d be willing to admit.

“Oh, will you please stop shifting already?” Jean asked, “You’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry.”

Silence.

“I want you to know,” Scott said, softly, “That I never intended... for any of this to happen.”

Jean smiled bitterly. “If you had, you wouldn’t be the Scott Summers I know and love.”

“Jean, I...”

“I’m not gonna lie to you and say it doesn’t hurt. It hurts. It hurt worse when you left, but... it still hurts.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. The downside of being a telepath, Scott, is that you can’t always shut everything out.”

Scott didn’t say anything.

“You always felt that I was perfect.” Jean said, “You even concurred with the whole _Miss Perfect_ thing. I knew almost everybody was calling me that behind my back, but the fact that you thought it held weight was more painful than anything facing me right now.”

“Well, have you noticed yourself?” Scott asked, his voice warm and friendly.

Jean huffed in mild frustration. “Scott, you’re always so quick to point out my flaws to me when we’re fighting, but you seem to forget all about them when we make up. In a fight, I go from being Miss Perfect to being a bundle of flaws strung up by an image. When we’re good, I’m Miss Perfect again.”

“I say shit out of anger, it’s not always true, it’s not always right, that’s why I-“

“You meant it. Every time. It didn’t take a telepathic link to tell me that, either.” Jean said, “You’ve always had this idea in your head that you could force the world to come to terms with how flawed, how fallible you were if you could only mask it all. With me, you always felt that I was so out there, so above and beyond that you just couldn’t measure up.”

Scott hung his head. There wasn’t anything in what she had said that wasn’t true.

“So you strived to be better, and I would adore that, Scott, I really would... but you didn’t stop there. You tried to be perfect. You tried to be on the level with me, and my level, well. You just sort of decided what that was on your own. You hid things from me, you tried to hide things anyway, because you didn’t want me to see how... what was it that you called it? Oh yeah, how _low_ you were.” Jean prodded Scott’s chest with one finger, almost playfully. “Your confidence is a sham, Scott Summers. Cyclops is just a mask. You put it on to keep people from seeing how insecure you are.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“And I was almost jealous of Rogue, to a degree.”

“A-ha!” Scott said, smiling, “I knew it!”

“Everybody knew it. Just like how everybody knew she was fixated on you.”

Scott’s smile vanished.

“But that wasn’t why.” Jean said, one hand running through his hair, “I was always a bit jealous ‘cause you were giving to her the one thing you never gave to me: yourself.”

“You can’t claim-“

“Don’t get defensive, Mr. Sensitive, I wasn’t finished. God, this is so you. Wait for me to finish what I was going to say, please?”

Scott crossed his arms.

“You were honest with her. You showed her who you really were, flaws and all. You showed her that you were just as imperfect as the rest of us. You felt like she would understand, because hey, it was a two-way street.”

“Guess it was, yeah...”

“And you always noticed her, always worried about her – part of your mind was dedicated to her. I knew what you felt, and it was more than simple affection. I understood well enough. I didn’t like it, at all, but I understood.”

“I always thought you’d wring my neck or something if I ever felt something more.”

Jean threw her hands up, groaning. “She said the same thing! I’m not some green-eyed monster hell-bent on snuffing people out just because they might feel something for each other!”

Scott held up his hands. “Alright, alright, forget I said anything... sorry.”

“Anyway... I want you to know that I won’t stand in the way of this.” Jean said.

“Jean...”

“No. It will take everything I have, but I won’t stand in the way. You told me we were through months ago. I should have taken a hint.”

“It wasn’t-“

“I know it wasn’t because Rogue was there... not consciously, anyway.”

“I never intended to hurt you.”

“I know.” Jean said, trying to hold back tears, “And doesn’t it just hurt so much?”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

Jean smiled, but Scott could see that she was barely holding back tears. Instead, she did what she always did – redirected. She turned his head and examined the three cuts on his cheek.

“You need stitches, and a crapload of disinfectant.” Jean said, “Come on. Let’s get you patched up.”

Scott hesitated.

“Don’t worry.” Jean said, “She’ll be here when you get back.” 

* * *

The white room, purer than it had ever been, surrounded them and Rogue found herself feeling filthy - a stain on the virginal space. She looked down and found herself fully dressed. Boots, with green Velcro straps... Rogue recognized the ensemble – right down to the transparent top and spiked choker. She had been wearing these clothes that night... the night when everything had changed.

Footsteps. Rogue looked ahead, her eyes adjusting to the lighting and saw him. He was as he always had been. He was wearing that sweater she had gotten him that Christmas a lifetime ago. He had his glasses on and he was smiling warmly. Rogue shivered as he put a gentle hand on her neck. He pulled her closer and kissed her. Rogue flung her arms around him and deepened the kiss, sighing, content.

When they withdrew, Rogue found his ever-present smile gone. She withdrew her arms and took a step back. She understood.

This wasn’t the dream.

This was the end of the dream.

“You’re not Scott.” Rogue said.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Then who are you?” Rogue asked.

“I’m you.”

“You’re... _me?_”

A nod. “I’m the Rogue. I’m the one beneath the Rogue. You were me, once. But you touched Cody, and you forgot me. You buried me and became someone else. Became the Rogue. But the Rogue isn’t a person. It’s a blank slate, a concept. Anybody can be the Rogue, because the Rogue can be anybody.”

“And you’re me... the _real_ me.”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you look like Scott?” Rogue asked.

“Because you love him.”

Rogue averted her gaze.

“You don’t love me.” Scott’s voice said, “You never loved me. You care for him more than you ever cared for me. That’s why I took his shape: you couldn’t hurt me if I was him. You’d keep me safe, because you want to keep him safe.”

Rogue recalled all the times her dream-Scott had told her that he was safe. “You were safe because Ah couldn’t – nah, Ah _wouldn’t_ hurt Scott. Not by choice.”

The image in front of her nodded in response.

“Then who am Ah?”

“You’re me.”

“And you’re me.”

“Yes.”

“So what does that mean?” Rogue asked, sighing.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s mah name?”

“I don’t remember that.”

“But you said-“

“Some things are lost forever. Some things, you forgot more thoroughly than others. You wanted to be somebody else so badly...”

“But now Ah’m _nobody._ Ah don’t have nobody left. Even he can’t help me now... not here.“

“There’s a reason why you thought I was him for the longest time. It’s because he’s here, inside you. Always has been. With every touch, he gave to you more of his soul – you didn’t take it. You didn’t steal it. He gave it to you. What more can you ask of him?”

“Ah can’t. Ah never had the right to ask for nothin... not of him. He did everythin he could and never asked for nothin in return.”

The Scott visage smiled and nodded. “I don’t know if you’re ready. I don’t know if you’re ready to be me again. One touch, and you’d just forget me all over again. But you still need me, as much as I need you. And... he needs you, too.”

“Nobody needs me.”

“You’ve seen him. You know him. You know what he feels.”

“He...”

“There’s nothing wrong with saying it.”

“He..." last hesitation before the step, "He loves me.”

The vision nodded. “Yes. Even if he hasn’t quite gotten around to putting it to thoughts. He cares for you more than he ever cared for himself. That’s who you’re protecting him from – himself. That’s why _he’s_ safe. You’re giving him something few others can give to another: you accept him. You know him inside and out, parts untouched and unexplored, and you accept him for who he is, wholly.”

Rogue didn’t shirk from this thought – inside, deep inside herself, as much as there was a herself left, she knew that she wanted this. Wanted him.

“So...” Rogue said, “What now?”

“I think it’s up to you.”

“But if Ah wake up...”

“I don’t know what will happen. No-one can tell you.”

“What will Ah find when I open mah eyes?” Rogue asked.

“What you left behind.”

Threshold.

“...Ah’m scared.”

“Aren’t we all..?”

“Ah hope... Ah’ll be better this time. Yeah, Ah’ll be better...”

Rogue felt tears pouring out. He reached out and pulled her close.

“I believe in you.” He said.

Quiet tears...


	10. Freecard

...tears on the pillow. Rogue felt like there was something knotted up in her chest, choking her. She turned to her side, dragging along the pure white sheets and drew her knees to her chest. She cried, silently, but it wasn’t very heartfelt and vanished quickly, leaving a trail of fresh ground to start from.

Looking through strands of auburn hair, Rogue could see Scott, asleep on a chair next to the bed with a book half-open on his lap. She recalled that he was in his uniform in the center of her last conscious memory, and now, he was wearing sweats and a hoodie. Rogue guessed that it had been some time between the memory of cutting him open and now.

Her eyes immediately darted for the large patch of gauze plastered onto one cheek, covering it completely. The thought of having hurt him, having actually spilled his blood made her sick. She could still taste it, too; the blood, lingering on her tongue in rich, thick droplets... sugared wine, warm. Delicious. Sick and wrong and despicably attractive.

Rogue felt revulsion towards the idea and knew that it was somebody else’s idea of a good time, somebody else’s taste. If she could only feel for who it was that she was in that moment, she could...

Wait.

There was nobody else inside with her.

Rogue’s mind came to a standstill and she found herself feeling naked. The noise was gone. The congregation of snakes wasn’t there anymore. Echoes weren’t debating the finer points of Marx’s “Capital” or the best types of meat to include in a jambalaya; they weren’t screaming out their insecure despair; they weren’t moaning their pleasures and begging her to give them more... there was nothing but silence in her head. Silence and herself. Nobody else.

Nobody but the Rogue.

Rogue immediately went to the one thing she needed the most in that moment, but it was, as she had been told, lost. She didn’t remember her name.

It was then that Rogue became aware of what she was wearing. It was nothing more than a t-shirt and underwear. She found her clothes neatly folded and stacked on top of each other by the bed, on the floor. Her gaze then traveled around the bed and she found that they were encased in a glass dome that was in the middle of an otherwise featureless room.

Rogue quietly slid off the bed to get dressed. Her hands had barely gotten hold of the t-shirt she was wearing that she hesitated. What if he woke up while she was still between clothes..?

She felt a warmth inside of her and found herself smiling. Would it be so bad? He had seen her at her lowest, at her absolute worst. He had seen her stripped bare before him and he hadn’t run away. He had stayed.

His words were still in her head, echoing sweetly.

_Because I love you._

Rogue took off the t-shirt. It wouldn’t be so bad, she thought. He had seen what was inside her.

Besides... he had never been afraid of her skin. 

* * *

Once dressed in the same jeans-tee-and-sweater combo, Rogue slipped on the gloves that were waiting for her. She was dying to touch him, aching to have him in her head again, but not when he was wounded, not after she had wounded him. She hadn’t earned the right yet.

So instead, she did the next best thing. She ran a gloved hand through his hair, stood next to him and embraced him, her hands resting on his neck. With his head in her bosom, on the sweater, she sighed. Contentment, if she ever knew what it was, must be something like this, she decided.

“Hmph, whe- wha..?”

Rogue couldn’t let him go. Not now. Just a little longer...

One of his hands found her arm and he gently held on, powerless to grip any tighter.

“Welcome back, Rogue.” He said, looking up.

She looked down into his ruby quartz eyes and remembered all the times she had thought he was watching her, but he never was and she knew it, but it felt good to pretend, so she had...

Well, now he actually was watching her.

“Hello.” She could manage.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like Ah did a shitload of drugs and then decided to jump into a woodchipper.”

Scott chuckled. Again. Before long, he was laughing out loud, his shoulders shaking. The book on his lap dropped to the floor as he laughed. Rogue looked down. _The Once and Future King._

“Well..." he said "For a gal straight out of the woodchipper, you’re alright. Looks like you made out okay.”

“Thanks to you.”

Rogue sat down onto the bed as Scott stretched and tried to bring himself to a more functional level. She twiddled her thumbs and tried to remember if this was somebody else’s habit. There wasn’t anything in her head to back that up.

_I have so much to learn..._

She looked at Scott, who was in the process of trying to locate which page he was on last so that he could dog-ear it. She smiled. If there was one thing she didn’t have to learn again, it was him.

“How long was Ah out?” Rogue asked.

“Four days.” Scott said, setting down the book. He ran a hand through his hair, “Everybody’s laying low. Well, that was what we were planning to do, anyway.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Emma Frost billed us, for one thing.”

Rogue raised an eyebrow. “Billed us? For what?”

“An even 25,000 for our one month and surplus stay at the Academy. 8,000 for our dorm room. I heard about 10,000 went to the re-decoration of her office... and an amount that the Professor wouldn’t tell us will go to...” he chuckled, “...reconstructive surgery.”

“Recon...” Rogue’s eyes grew wide, “Oh Lord, did Ah... was it bad?”

“She didn’t have much of a nose the last time anyone checked.” His face grew sullen, “Unfortunately, Kitty’s going to need some of that as well.”

Rogue hung her head. She remembered it. How her hair had felt in her palm, how satisfying the sound of her nose breaking in had been... Rogue shivered.

“Ah don’t have much,” she said “Just a little collection’a little somethings in a Chase account. She can have that. If Ah can find ‘im, that swamp rat can help, for a cut...”

“Professor Xavier, aside from being a shifty son of a bitch, has a lot of connections, I hear. It’s being taken care of. She’ll go under early next week.”

“Ah’m glad.”

Rogue’s eyes lingered on his cheek. Scott, sensing her focus, turned his head a little for her to completely see. Her hand reached out, but she pulled it back before it was halfway.

“Does it hurt..?” Rogue asked and immediately regretted the question. Of course it hurt.

“I keep forgetting I have stitches there and I lean on it. Eating is a bit of a chore. But that’s it. I got off light, all things considered...”

“Ah’m so sorry... Ah never wanted, never thought Ah could-“

Scott switched from his chair to the bed and sat down by her side. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. She could feel his body, underneath the cloth and it felt wonderful to be this close... just wonderful.

“Jean tells me I might have some badass scars. Might help me strip off that pretty-boy tag everybody’s so eager to slap onto me.”

Rogue couldn’t help but laugh a little. He smiled.

“Now, there’s a sound we should hear more often.” He said.

* * *

They sat there in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s closeness. Rogue hadn’t touched his skin yet, but it wasn’t because she was deliberately putting it off – she just didn’t feel a need to. There had been days when she would have given anything at all just for one touch, one kiss, one word of love and now, she felt like she had been given all those days at once. Listening to his heart beat, knowing that his mind, now awake, was working overtime prompted her to speak.

“Ah love you.” She said, “And Ah can tell you all the reasons why, but all the reasons in the world ain’t enough.”

“I only have two reasons. One of them is me.”

“What’s the other one?”

“You.”

Rogue reached for his uninjured cheek and her fingers gently pulled on the back of his neck. Their lips met and Scott felt Rogue sigh and relax. The kiss lingered, sending a rush of thoughts, emotions, memories, fears, hopes and dreams through his lips. She held onto the moment for as long as she could without hurting him. When she withdrew, leaving him breathless, she found the taste of him lingering. She enjoyed it. She put one hand on her chest and felt her heart pounding.

“...but we can’t stay encased in this glass dome forever.” He said.

“Just a little longer.”

“Whatever the lady wants.”

“Ain’t you a gentleman.”

“I try.”

* * *

The arbitrary duration of a little longer lasted about ten minutes in base reality. In the end, Rogue was too wired up on the prospect of what could be waiting for her outsid and too... happy, if that made sense at all, from having him by her side to waste her time sitting in a glass dome.

For his part, Scott was tired. He hadn’t seen a real bed in days. The vigil he had held, always pregnant with concerns and questions but never able to carry either into full term had worn him out. Further, there was the flip side of everything to consider – namely, their next step. In his head, Logan’s voice was insistently repeating: _this isn’t some dick move you’re gonna be able to double-back on._

But they had done what they had done and he figured that since they couldn’t change it, they might as well try to navigate their circumstances.

Doing so required a first step, which Scott took by taking Rogue by the hand and guiding her to the only exit of the room.

* * *

Scott and Rogue emerged from the elevator and stepped into the hallway leading to the foyer. They found the foyer empty and though they could hear the merry sounds of the young mutants in the distance, outside, there appeared to be nobody inside the mansion. Unsure of what to do, they decided to go upstairs to the dormitories, maybe to knock on a door or two. They were halfway up the stairs when Hank McCoy, wearing a white shirt and gray chinos, appeared.

“Ah, so, peace and tranquility returns again.” Hank offered.

“Anne Frank?” Scott asked.

“Paraphrased it.” Hank said with a grin, “Nice to see that you two have returned to the land of the living.”

“We just ain’t dead is all.” Rogue said.

“And isn’t it a joy?” Hank said, “I was just coming to check up on you, as per Charles’ request, of course. He wants to see you.”

“Now?” Scott asked, “We barely-“

“Indulge him. It’s the least you can do, isn’t it?”

Hank gestured for them to follow and moved. Scott shrugged and looked at Rogue for a response. Rogue responded with the same shrug.

* * *

Charles Xavier was wearing a grey suit today and had no tie. He was waiting for them by the window. Also in the room were Ororo, leaning against Charles' desk with her arms crossed; Jean, sitting in a guest chair, playing with a strand of her hair; Logan, leaning against a wall, beer in hand and cigar in between teeth; Kurt, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, but without his image inducer; and finally, Kitty, shuffling her feet. Rogue saw that she had a large patch of gauze plastered onto her face, where her nose should have been. Rogue almost winced at the phantom pain, imagining what it must have been like to have her face smashed in by someone she considered a good friend.

“Well,” Scott said, “We’re here.”

Charles turned his wheelchair and moved forwards.

“I wanted to discuss your futures.” Charles said, “Obviously, there is a place for the both of you here, at the Institute, as there always will be.”

Scott and Rogue exchanged glances.

“I wouldn’t think to close my doors on either one of you.” Charles continued, “If you would like to stay, you can. We will, obviously, need some...” his gaze went to Jean for a moment, “...adjustments, but it can be managed.”

Seeing that he wasn’t willing to go ahead, Rogue took the lead.

“Ah don’t trust you.” She said, “After what you did to me, Ah can’t trust you again. All mah life, all anyone had ever done to me was to use me for somethin-or-other. Ah thought you were different, that you wouldn’t do nothin like that. Ah was wrong. You lied to me, you used me, you hurt me and you made me hurt people Ah actually did care about. And ya didn’t just use me, you used all of us. Jean. Jamie. That Rankin kid. Forge. Kurt.”

“I had the best of intentions...” Charles said.

“Ya know what they say about the road to hell.”

Charles could only nod.

“But this place is the only thing Ah had that was anywhere near bein mah home. Ah never had a lot of options anyway and Ah think Ah can stay here... if only to keep an eye on you.”

“I agree.” Scott said, “You need to be controlled. You need checks and balances. Someone to scrutinize you. I’m sorry, Professor, but you’re too powerful to be allowed to operate uncontrolled.”

“Kid’s still got a point, Chuck.” Logan said.

“Without supervision, you become dangerous.” Scott said, “That’s what we saw. In light of that, I want to stay as well, if only to give something back and to protect you from yourself.”

“There is still the matter of your position with the X-Men, young Cyclops.” Ororo said.

“I don’t expect to be the team leader.” Scott said, “Far as I’m concerned, that position belongs to Jean now and since you are still in one piece, I think she’s doing a bang-up job.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Jean said, “But it was all I could to keep things together, that’s all.”

“What’ll we do now?” Rogue asked, “Ah mean, what’s gonna happen?”

“I think that’ll become clearer in a few days.” Charles said, “Does that mean you will be staying?”

Rogue nodded.

“For better or worse,” Scott said, “We are still X-Men.” 

* * *

After Rogue apologized again and again to a distraught, but somewhat forgiving Kitty, she and Scott exited Charles’ office. They stopped a few steps from the door and stared at each other.

“So... what just happened, again?” Rogue asked.

“I think we’re back where we started.”

“God...”

“We can still run. Make a break for it and-”

“Ah’m tired of running.”

“Then where we are is where we’ll stay.”


	11. Single Part of Two

Rogue woke up to the bedside clock displaying 3:34 in digital green. She could feel her body rapidly waking up and soon understood that trying to go back to sleep would be futile. She felt Scott’s arm across her stomach, his fingers caught between her body and the mattress. Rogue thanked for the thin, stocking-like body suit she wore to bed; thankful, as she had always been in nights like this... but not as thankful for the reality of his body next to hers.

He felt warm. He felt like the home she had never known.

Rogue settled back in, hoping against hope. Her consciousness was alive and it was filling her head with the strangest of notions. Every concept, every idea, even the barest, most mundane of thoughts felt somewhat out of place. The waking thought was always someone else’s, she knew, but this time, the waking thought belonged to the Rogue.

She wasn’t sure what that meant.

She tossed, turned, put her limbs into various configurations, pulled the comforter up, pushed it down, tried to clear her head of her own noise, tried to let her thoughts go where they may, all to no avail.

Scott groaned next to her as she tried to turn to her side for the tenth time. She laid still, listening to her own heart beat and waited for a sign that he was awake. His light, steady breathing told her that he wasn’t.

Rogue gently slipped out of his arm and got up. She had taken one step when her foot got caught up in a piece of cloth on the ground. She crouched and felt for what it was. Her fingers slid on familiar latex polymer. Her uniform.

A scared kid drowning in his clothes had brought it to her late in the evening. All Rogue had seen of him through the uplifted hood of his hoodie were his pale cheek, strands of auburn hair and scared, big, green eyes. He had flinched when Rogue had reached for what he was carrying, which was when Rogue had seen the PVC latex gloves he was wearing. Her mind had clicked at least one aspect of this boy into place, taking hints of his appearance and reminding her how much she resembled him when she was in middle school.

He was an untouchable.

Rogue had asked his name. The kid had mumbled something, too low to actually be heard. When she had asked him again, he had, hesitantly, said,louder this time, though not by much, “Kevin.”

Rogue had thanked him, which had caused him to nod furiously before launching down the hall, leaving her standing in the doorway with her uniform back in her hands.

Rogue gently pushed her uniform aside and stood up, squinting, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the darkness. This was so much easier when she had had Kurt’s or Logan’s powers at her disposal, but she didn’t want to follow that thought down. Too much shit there. Too much overbearing, overwhelming shit down that road. She knew that she had only barely made it out this time. What the other her, wearing Scott’s face had said – she had wanted to be somebody else so badly...

But she knew that she had been given a second chance. She had been given herself back and to clutter that again with the echoes of others was too terrifying a prospect.

She looked around the room, her eyes gradually revealing the basic positions, sizes and shapes of the furniture. She noticed that things were still a bit scattered around. They had only managed to put away their clothes, and some of their sentimental items before deciding to call it a day. Their territory was only partially claimed; but soon, it would be fully theirs.

Theirs.

Rogue felt giddy at the thought. Theirs.

Rogue’s gaze drifted towards Scott. She had seen him like this many times, especially those nights at the hospital and she had always felt the distance between them. He had never had qualms about crossing it, about delivering something so simple, rare and fucking wonderful as his touch; but most nights, she couldn’t sleep and she had roamed the room they were confined to in fear of waking him up (at least one of them should have slept and with the amount of abuse he had taken on her behalf, she knew that it should have been him) and had felt that same distance.

Because when he was sleeping, when he was defenseless... then, _he_ was untouchable.

But now, looking at him, Rogue knew that the strangest thing had happened. He wasn’t distant anymore. He wasn’t something she had to see, crave for, only steal in moments of absolute weakness only to content herself with the echoes of... he was there, he was in the bed that they were sharing, not out of necessity, but because they wanted to.

He wasn’t untouchable anymore, and he was still intent on showing her that neither was she. 

* * *

Growing up, Rogue had been told many things.

_Here’s your new mama, now go with her. I was told your mother disappeared and your aunt knew me, so I wanted to take care of you. Wouldn’t you like that? You liked Siouxie Sioux so much, I got you a bunch of clothes like hers. You’ve got a skin condition, you need to cover up. You can’t touch people, your condition may be contagious – we don’t know, but better be safe than sorry. Rogue, meet Raven, she’s a distant relative of yours and a friend of your aunt’s._

_No, you can’t go to that party – there’ll be too many people there. What if you accidentally touch someone?_

_Who’s that? You know who - the boy you’re keeping the picture of in your notebook. Where did you even get that picture? Why do you have it?_

It went on and on in a series of lies told to her by Irene or Mystique. However, both of them had been very hesitant, very hush-hush about the subject of boys.

Oh, Rogue knew the whole score – she had developed a habit of seeking answers in the school library and enough biology books on the subject told her how the whole process worked. It was icksome, weird and fascinating, but that still didn’t answer the question of how she was supposed to act around boys.

She had watched the other girls from her little corners around the school and around the places couples and groups of friends hung out, but what she had learned was that it all required a lot touching, a lot of faked laughter and a lot of strange games. She still didn’t think she could do any of that, especially the touching part.

And then Cody had happened. Cody Rogers had gone and gotten himself into her head and he had erased her name.

It was a bit of a blur, until Henry V and Scott Summers.

* * *

Rogue had thought he was like the others, a stuck-up asshole with way too much privilege and a self-righteous streak he wasn't decent enough to hold back. This had been her view until that stupid rehearsal. It had begun like any other day at the office, until he had just flat out closed the book and had asked her what she was feeling.

Him? Of all people? The leader of her enemies? He wanted to know?

God forbid, was he actually curious?

The mere idea was just fucking ridiculous. He couldn’t be interested or anything, not really... except he seemed to be.

_You are like an angel, Kate._

That was when Scott Summers had started to occupy a part of her mind.

And it hadn’t stopped. Rogue had never quite understood how he was able to capture her attention without doing anything. He seemed to only need to exist for her to notice him. Her attention seemed to be attuned to his presence. After joining the X-Men, her situation had been taken to new heights – they were doing things together, both as part of a group and just the two of them.

She had found herself impatiently waiting for the things they did by themselves. The conversations, the training, all of it.

She didn’t know how that was, but he had made her feel like she could do anything, be anyone. Anyone at all, anyone but herself.

Rogue had no illusions about it, despite an unexplored part of her constantly begging for it to be different. He was nice to her, yeah. But he was nice to everybody. She had found herself latching onto the things they had in common: a love for music, dead Russian authors, cheesy horror flicks, racquetball... he was easy to talk to. He listened and he spoke. Every time he had told her something about himself, she had felt like he was sharing little secrets with her.

...and he had never been afraid or hesitant to touch her.

He had touched her enough for her to get to know him, know the parts of him that he himself was trying to run from. She could see him, she knew him, maybe even better than he would allow himself to know himself, but parts of it were painful for her. His intense affection for Jean, rivaled only by his envy of what she had been given (parents, control over her powers, the ability to know what he was thinking when he never had a fucking clue); his constant paranoia, fueled by his insecurities, that he would fail both the X-Men and the Professor; his inability to make a deeper connection with Alex.

But one thing had always made her cling onto the thought of him: his unexpressed need for her. The Rogue.

_Of all the people in all the homes in all the world..._

His need for her honesty, her lack of prejudice, her reluctance to judge, her damages and insecurities and phobias... the broken parts of her that assured him somebody else was as fucked up as he was.

Now, he was here, in the room that was made theirs; still distant, but no longer untouchable. Open, body and soul, all the good and bad. All of it. All of him. 

* * *

Rogue cast one final glance at him (just to make sure he was there) and then tip-toed her way to the door, thanking the carpeting for masking the sound of her steps. She gently opened the door only enough to slink outside and then closed it behind her. Once outside, she began to quietly make her way towards the stairs. There was only one place to be at this time of night and in this state of mind: the kitchen. Most other insomniacs favored the rec room, and Rogue wasn’t in the mood for a bout of socializing brought on by seeming similar circumstance.

A soft sound stopped her in front of a door. It was almost like a whisper, but heavier, bursting with meaning. Rogue recognized the vibration in the air. Jean. She was sharing her room with a new recruit, a blonde, Irish mutant by the name of Sean; for the lack of empty rooms, she had said.

Rogue decided that it was none of her business. She knew the whole score, yeah, but also had an inkling that nobody was supposed to hear this.

* * *

Rogue opened the kitchen door and found Logan, in his classical boxers-and-undershirt combo, having a beer while staring at the wall. Once she stepped in, he glanced at her. He smiled and greeted her by clacking his tongue.

“Hey, Stripe. Couldn’t sleep?”

Rogue shook her head.

“Why don’tcha pull up a chair?”

Rogue first went to the fridge and recovered the large bottle of blood orange juice. It was half full. She figured she’d finish it, so she didn’t bother with a glass. She pulled up a chair and sit diagonally from Logan, who was building a small fort with bottles of Labatt Blues.

For a while, they sat and drank in silence. Logan broke it.

“So... you and Slim, huh?”

Rogue felt a smile stretch her lips. She nodded.

“Now there’s a twist.”

Rogue raised an eyebrow.

“Thought he only had eyes for Jean.”

Rogue stifled an offhand comment with the taste of blood oranges.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Logan said, putting down his spent bottle and smoothly slicing open a new one, “I’m happy for ya. I’ve seen you lookin’ his way, more’n once. Hell, even when I asked you if you were with us or not, you just glanced at him before you answered me. Wasn’t exactly a state secret.”

“Did _everyone_ know?” Rogue asked, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“God, Ah don’t even wanna think about the amount of gossip that went on...”

“Yeah, I don’t get what that is all about, either.”

Rogue took a swig. “What?”

“Gossip. I understand what it is, but I just don’t get what it’s for.”

“Devil’s workshop?”

“Amen to that.”

Logan halved his bottle. “But, it ain’t that much of a surprise, either. On his part, I mean. You were out of it, you didn’t see the way he stormed outta this place. I ain’t gonna forget _that_ anytime soon.”

Rogue could only stare.

“Look, I don’t stick my nose into other people’s shit.” Logan said, “Their personal business ain’t that of mine. But I got these enhanced senses. I can’t always walk away from whatever I’m doin’ on accounta some argument within earshot – I’d never be able to sit down anywhere. So I heard ‘em argue a coupla times. Nothin’ major, I’m sure that if I could remember what I was like as a teen, I’d remember doin’ shit like that too. But they always had these drawn-out fights, ya know. Forty-seven minutes plus, that one time.”

“Ya clocked ‘em?” Rogue asked with some amusement.

“Our secret.” Logan said, “They had ‘em few, but they had ‘em still, like everybody else. Your name came up more’n once. It was nothin’ apocalyptic, everybody knew that Slim was a little too attached to you. Jeannie had noticed. Naturally. Fuckin’ telepaths...”

Rogue was surprised to hear this from him – he, who worked with a telepath every day.

“So, anyway, this ain’t much of a surprise. It’s a twist, but not a surprise.”

“Ah still can’t believe this happened...”

“Believe it, kid.” Logan finished his beer, “’sides... tough times are comin’. Better this typa shit happen now than later. I got a feelin’ that we’re gonna need to be able to be able to trust each other, more than we do now, to make it out of it in one piece. Won’t have no room for any a’ these... social changes in the fray.”

Rogue rose the bottle of blood orange juice in salutation.

* * *

They sat in silence until both, simultaneously, decided to pack it in once again. Logan went off before they could get up to the sleeping quarters, citing his need to make the rounds once again. Rogue bade him goodnight and proceeded to her... no, _their_ room. On her way, she passed by Jean’s door and her senses suddenly felt a need to attune themselves to the lowest sounds that may issue from in there.

Luckily, there was only silence. 

* * *

Rogue quietly entered the room and shut the door behind her. She waited for a minute or two for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. When she was able to see enough to navigate the room, she tip-toed her way to the bed. She gently kicked her uniform to the side, so as not to trip over it and stood there, trying to angle her approach just right. She didn’t want to wake him up.

_Good Lord, how do people do this? I never..._

Determined, Rogue decided that the best way to do it would be an attempt at just sliding in between the covers, rather than putting her weight on it, adjusting the rest of herself and thus constantly shaking the mattress.

Rogue slid into the bed and found her side cold. She pulled the comforter over her and gently put one arm around him. He was sleeping soundly. Rogue closed her eyes and knew that she wouldn’t dream – she didn’t need to dream about him anymore. She was a single part of two now, part of him and the reality of him negated the allure of any dream.


	12. Epilogue (Midwinter)

Rogue crossed her arms as she looked over the cliff and sought the horizon. The night time sky was starless. Instead of brilliant lights, gentle flakes of snow were lazily descending. She felt her nose grow cold and remembered that she would never get used to these New York winters. Caldecott had never been this cold.

Of course, her new coat was keeping the worst of it at bay. It was Scott’s gift, of course, bought with whatever he had left from their little adventure to Chicago – a green, melton wool, hooded greatcoat with quilt lining, thick and comfortable. She loved it and it came in handy, because she wasn’t in Caldecott anymore...

Ah, there it was, again. The thought. The thought that she hadn’t been able to shake.

They had been huddled in front of the giant flat screen in the rec room, mutants of all ages, watching CNN and latching onto any mention of the Registration Act, which was on the very verge of being passed. They had all gotten sick of the footage of Rogue going haywire in the middle of the Academy of Tomorrow, recorded mostly by camera phones, being pushed forward as one of the most concrete pieces of evidence that mutants were inherently dangerous.

In the news reel after that, Rogue had caught a glimpse of the bayou and it had immediately brought about a surge of memories – this time, nobody’s but her own. Memories of Caldecott, Mississippi, Irene, Cody, the frequent visits of a ‘relative’ that she now knew was Mystique... and then there were the fainter memories of the time before Irene, memories of her Auntie, and here’s your Rogue, Mrs... no name.

The idea had then settled into her head. The idea was slowly giving way to need, Rogue knew. It clashed somewhat with the impromptu lesson Scott had given her without even meaning to: that her needs and desires weren’t despicable by default; that she, like everybody else, wanted and needed certain things. Acceptance of certain aspects of herself, some of her desires especially, Rogue knew, wasn’t something she was ready for just yet.

But this wasn’t about that. It was about something much simpler, something much more basic – something that she should have had by default, something stolen from her by her own damn DNA.

Lost in her thoughts (and glad that she could get lost inside her own thoughts) she didn’t notice Scott until his arms snaked around her torso and he pulled her closer. His lips found her temple and he landed a kiss. Warmth. Rogue sighed and relaxed, settling into his arms.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

“Not anymore, Ah'm not.”

“It’s even warmer inside.”

“Just a little longer.”

“Alright.”

They stood there, exchanging warmth.

“Any chance you might tell me what’s on your mind?” Scott asked.

“You.”

“Liar.”

“Ah am not!”

“Okay, omitter, then.”

“Omitter? Is that even a word?”

“It is now.”

“And what am Ah omitting, exactly?”

“What’s really on your mind.”

Rogue laughed. It was still this alien sound to her, she hadn’t quite gotten used to hearing it, despite how often he made her do it. She could feel Scott grinning. Her heart sank, if only slightly.

“Ah might leave soon.” Rogue said.

“Leave?”

“For a week, maybe.”

“Where to?” he asked.

“Mississippi.”

Silence.

“...I am not coming with you, am I?”

“Ah’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Forget everythin else, it’s a beautiful place. Ah’d love to take you there sometime...” She said, “Just not on this trip.” She sighed, “Ah need to find mah aunt. She’s the only one Ah know who can give me the answers Ah need. Ah need to know who Ah am. Ah need to know what mah mama would call me by, if she had been mah mama.”

“I know...” he said, “I know.”

A moment of silence.

“When are you leaving?”

“Not for a while.” Rogue slipped out of his arms and turned to face him, to look into his eyes, “Ya know Ah’ll be back. Ah’ll be back for you.”

“I’ll still be here when you get back. You know that.”

Rogue smiled. “How’d Ah get so lucky?”

“I don’t know. How did you?”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me.”

Scott did. Rogue, despite how many times they had done it, still found it unbelievably beautiful. A thousand thoughts and emotions rushed into her and when he withdrew, she had a piece of him inside her. The echoes didn’t last long these days and when they faded, they were gone completely, but for a while, having this little piece of him inside her would suffice. It was enough for her.

“I’m going back in.” Scott said, shivering, “It’s freezing out here!”

“Right there with ya, sugah.” Rogue said.

Her hand slipped into his and their fingers interlocked.


End file.
